Castle in the clouds

Thomas G. Plant

Portrait by Alphonse Jongers, 1915 Courtesy of the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home

A Castle in the Clouds: Tom Plant and the American Dream

Barry H. Rodrigue

Archipelago Juneau/Bath/Belfast 2014

Copyright @ 2014 by Barry H. Rodrigue All rights reserved

Publication support provided by The HBE Foundation, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; The Maine Youth Alliance, Belfast, Maine; Print Services Management, Penobscot, Maine;

Rodrigue, Barry H., 1949– A Castle in the Clouds: Tom Plant and the American Dream/Barry H. Rodrigue Includes bibliographical references and index 1. Plant, Tom, 1859–1941 2. Shoe industry—United States —Biography 3. French Americans—Biography 4. Entrepreneurship—United States—Biography. I. Title.

ISBN 978-0-9915427-0-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2014937913

Book design by Al Trescot, Rocky Hill Design, Damariscotta, Maine Manufactured in the United States of America

by Skowhegan Press, Skowhegan, Maine

Contents Connections & Appreciations Prologue: Identity, Heritage & Society

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Chapter I – Introduction

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Chapter II – Family Migrations Canadian Background Beauce, Maine & the Canada Road French-Canadian Colonization of Maine Arrival in Bath, Maine Summary

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Chapter III – Family Life & Early Work Canada Hill Civil War & Reconstruction Early Work along the Kennebec Lynn Shoe Maker Shoe Entrepreneur Summary

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Chapter IV – Rising Captain of Industry Independent Lynn Manufacturer Marriage & Family Workers Accidents & a Strike Foundations of a Boston Factory Production & More Innovations Superfactory: From Paternalism to Corporate Welfare The Factory of the Future Assessment of Plant’s Innovations Personal Lives Summary

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Chapter V – Shoe Machinery War: Saint George & the Dragon The Rise of the United Shoe Machinery Company Prelude to Battle Opening Shots, Skirmishes & Battles Half-Hearted Truce & Settlement Assessment of the Plant-USMC Sale Summary Chapter VI – Transition Lost Commissions, Divorce & Litigation Bull Moose Progressive Search for a Home The Start of an Estate Summary Chapter VII – Ideas of Grandeur: The Earl of Ossipee Park Lord of the Manor Lifestyle, Leisure & Investments The Old Folks Home The Bald Peak Country Club Retirement under Fire Downhill Spiral Postscript Summary

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Chapter VIII – Conclusion

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Epilogue: A Human Face of Capital

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Bibliography

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Index

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List of Illustrations Thomas Plant portrait, c 1924 Thomas Plant, c. 1910 Eva Ashland Roderick and Barry Roderick, c. 1955 Eugene Debs, Painting, c. 2004 Eugene Debs and Grandchildren, c. 1910 Jo Labadie, c. 1920 C. Odilion Malloux, c. 1920 Jacques Ferland, c. 1994 The Geography of Thomas G. Plant Canadian Wedding, MontrĂŠal, c. 1840 Eastern Borderlands, Map, c. 1830 Canada Road, c. 1913 Maine River Scene, c. 1860 Riverscape, Bath, c. 1858 Bath Riot, c. 1854 Birds Eye View of Bath, c. 1878 Plant/Rodrigue House, Bath, Sketch of photo c. 1949, 1993 Seventh Maine Infantry, Encampment, Baltimore, c. 1863 Seventh Maine Soldiers, c. 1862 Tom & William Plant, Bath, c. 1865 Ice Harvest on the Kennebec River, c. 1875 Shoe Factory along the Kennebec River, c. 1875 Lynn and Boston Railroad map, c. 1898 Thomas G. Plant Company, Lynn, c. 1892 Hotel Belvoir, Boston, c. 1895 Queen Quality Shoe Advertisement, c. 1905 Thomas G. Plant Company, Boston, c. 1901 Dorothy Dodd Shoe Advertisement, c. 1903 Letterhead, Thomas G. Plant Company, c. 1909 Olmsted Designed Park at Thomas G. Plant Company, c. 1909 Hotel Somerset, Boston, c. 1904

i vii xvi xviii xix xx xxiv xxvi 8 10 12 15 19 20 30 31 34 35 36 39 40 54 64 66 71 72 76 78 84 85

RMS Ivernia, Boston, c. 1902 Sunshine, Horse Portrait, c. 1900 Wonder Worker Welting Machine, c. 1910 Wonder Worker Catalogue Dedication, c. 1910 Letter, Thomas Plant to Mary Campbell, c. 1910 Lake Winnipesaukee, c. 1903 Ossipee Park, advertising card, 1884 season.

William Plant at Crow’s Nest, c. 1912 Stone Workers & Warehouse at Lucknow, c. 1913 Marilla & Olive Dewey, Toulon, c. 1913 Construction on Mansion at Lucknow, c. 1914 Lucknow, Moultonborough, c. 1920 Main Hall, Lucknow, c. 1924 Mansion, first floor plan, c. 1924 Lucknow & Lake Winnipesaukee Vista, c. 1915 Tom Plant on horseback, c. 1930 Plant/Oliver Controversy, Newspaper Headline, c. 1914 Tourism Brochure for Drives to Ossipee Mountain, c. 1917 Letterhead, Hotel Royal Poinciana, Palm Beach, c. 1917 Tom Plant playing hockey, c. 1920 William and Margret Plant, c. 1910 Amy Plant and Ted Van Tassel Jr., c. 1912 Alfred Grover, c. 1919 Plant Brothers & Company, Newburyport, c. 1920 Old Folks Home, Bath, c. 1920 Rules, Old Folks Home, c. 1921 Broadside, Bath, c. 1926 Bald Peak Country Club, Melvin Village,c. 1920 Bill, Tom and Everett Plant, c. 1920 Everett Plant Family Visit to Lucknow, c. 1939 Ted Van Tassel and Tom Plant, c. 1920 Maine Labor Mural, c. 2008 Charles Scontras, c. 1995

87 114 119 127 146 150 153 155 156 157 158 159 160 162 174 176 178 179 180 182 183 184 185 186 188 191 195 197 203 224 232 237

A Castle in the Clouds:

Granny & Me on one of the Sunday drives, Marie-Eve Asselin (Eva Roderick & Barry Rodrigue), Pemaquid, Maine, 1955

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Connections & Appreciations This project began around 1960, when I was ten years old. I sat in the backseat of a big, old Buick on one of those never-ending Sunday afternoon drives with the old folks – a welcome break from their work at the shoe factories in Augusta, Maine. We drove up into the White Mountains and down around Lake Winnipesaukee. Suddenly, Aunt Lou pointed to a forest-covered hillside with a fortress-like building on top and said, “That used to belong to your cousin Tom.” She smiled. Grandma Eva added: “The French side of the family made money, but they lost it all.” They laughed.

There was a moral in there somewhere, but it went over my young head.

We drove back to Maine.

Life took me elsewhere after that, but I maintained an interest in the story. I spent twenty years in Alaska and, between jobs at sea and in the forest, I took time to track down information about Tom Plant. My friends Bob Sylvester and Kraig Schwartz listened to the story late into the night aboard our salmon troller at Chichagof Island. When my business partner in Juneau, John Ingalls, insisted that I learn to use a computer on his “new” Mac 128k, I composed letters of inquiry about Tom Plant to town clerks in Maine and Québec. One of the first to respond was André Garant, a talented historian in St-Georges-de-Beauce, who provided surprising insights into my quest for family history.

I returned to New England in 1990 and began graduate work at the University of Maine. On the way to a seminar one afternoon, I found my professor, Jacques Ferland, smoking a cigarette and pacing up and down the driveway at Canada House. He said that he had been assigned the task of writing entries about four shoe industrialists for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. He had information on Michel Brunet and Louis Caron, who were from Québec, but he couldn’t find much information about Louis Goddu and Thomas Plant, who worked in Massachusetts: “I don’t even know if Plant was French…or a Canadian!” I started laughing, remembering the drive with Aunt Lou and Grandma Eva. That conversation led to my M.A. thesis about Tom Plant in 1992. It was published two years later by Professor Stuart Bruchey of Columbia

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University in his series on “Studies of Entrepreneurship.” Unfortunately, this archival edition was never produced for the general public.1 In the meantime, Tom’s estate went from private ownership to a land trust, now known as the “Castle in Clouds.” Bruce Brown, a visitor, was moved by the story of Tom’s life, which he believes teaches a series of enduring lessons.2 A senior philanthropy consultant in Pennsylvania, Mr. Brown is also a trustee for the HBE Foundation. They generously offered to fund a new version of the book, the result of which you hold in your hands.

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for my family, those who gave me a good personal sense of history – my parents, Gladys Hadfield and Henry Roderick Jr, and the old folks who passed on our heritage: Eva Ashland and Henry Roderick Sr; Louella Ashland and Lawrence Roderick, and their son Richard; Arnold and Emma Hills; Louis-Philippe Rodrigue; Denise Rodrigue and Grant Dearnaley; Betty, Jane and Bea Roderick; and the rest of our extended family, including Court Wilson, Ellen Hills Galbreath and Glenn Legge.

Especial appreciation goes to my M.A. advisor, Jacques Ferland, and the members of my graduate committee: Robert Babcock, C. Stewart Doty, Howard Segal, Edward “Sandy” Ives and Stuart Bruchey at the University of Maine. My work could not have been accomplished without the important backing that came from Canadian-American Center fellowships, History Department awards, and Association of Graduate Students grants. Much help and encouragement came from Yvon Labbé, Jim Bishop and Rhea Côté Robbins at the Franco-American Center; Peter Morici, Stephen Hornsby, Amy Morin and Nancy Strayer at the Canadian-American Center; the scholars and staff of the History and the Anthropology Departments, especially Ed Schriver, David Smith, William Baker, Suzanne Moulton, Debbie Grant and Nancy Dymond; Terry Kelly, Mel Johnson, Dick Swain and the staff at the Fogler Library; and my fellow graduate students – Gérard Forgue, Matthew LaFlamme, Pauleena MacDougall, Pam Crane, Kraig Schwartz, Matthew Hatvany and Deborah Stiles, who shared their ideas over many cups of coffee in the Bear’s Den cafe.

Many folks provided caring support. Raymond and Patricia Estabrook in Belfast, Maine helped in more ways than imaginable, from a carriage-

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house sanctuary to creative discussions. I worked my way through the M.A. program aboard the schooner Appledore II on Penobscot Bay and found that being aloft in the rigging was a refreshing break from the classroom, and so express my warm appreciation to the ship’s crew. I also appreciate the humorous indulgence of the Appledore’s master, John McKean. Friends and neighbors provided much creative thinking – Dave and Bev Goodale, Denis LeDoux, Joe Ferlazzo, Paul Weeks, Jim Gordon, Gail Von Drashek, and Gretje Ferguson.

Wayne Lovington pioneered some original research about Tom Plant at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and collaborated on early stages of this work, as in discussions with the Robie family. The custodians of various sites associated with Tom Plant have been very helpful. Thatcher Pinkham, Victoria Grass Bornheimer, Don Capoldo and the staff at the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home in Bath, Maine gave access to some of the few surviving primary documents relating to Tom Plant. While there, it was an unexpected pleasure to meet a cousin, Hazel Adams, whose grandmother was Tom Plant’s sister, Fannie. Hazel graciously shared stories and genealogy from a family Bible. Clark and Bette Goodchild from Beverly, Massachusetts provided materials regarding Clark’s old employer, the United Shoe Machinery Company. Walter Marx and the Jamaica Plain Historical Society in Boston shared items about Tom’s factory. The family and friends of Olive Dewey Plant opened their memories – John Dewey, Gerald Stapel, Iona Richards, Helen Wrigley, Fannie Jackson, Virginia Perrin, Charles Black, and Alice Dewey. I also appreciate the encouragement of the Lakes Region Conservation Trust and the Castle Preservation Society, which work to conserve Tom’s estate; especially helpful were Don Berry, Ann Hackl, Michael Desplaines, and Marty Grover.

As with Tom, this effort began in Maine. In Augusta, much help came from Dave Anderson, Jeff Brown, Patty Lincoln, Arthur Dostie, Anthony Douin and others at the Maine State Archives and the Kennebec Historical Society. Jay Robbins and the Richmond Historical Society shared great images and information. In Bath, Nathan Lipfert and the Maine Maritime Museum provided images, while Gordon Struble, Denise Larson, Robin Haynes, Peter Goodwin, Karen Richard and the staff at the Patten Free

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Library gave important background information. Surprises came regularly.

One day, walking down a street in Belfast, Maine, I spied advertising for Queen Quality Shoes in the window of Colburn Shoe, the “oldest shoe store in America” (1832). Their proprietor, Brian Horne, shared a wealth of artifacts that had lain in his attic for almost a century.

In Massachusetts, many people and institutions had information about Tom’s work. In Lynn, I received shoe history expertise from Diane Shephard, the Lynn Historical Society & Museum, and the Public Library.

In Salem, the Peabody Essex Museum guided me into their collections.

Tom Hennessey and Paul Sullivan at the Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston helped retrieve many old documents, as did the Boston Public Library. The celebrated shoework historian, Mary Blewett, of the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, shared insights. At Harvard University, Alexander von Hoffman of the Graduate School of Design, Barbara Dailey of the Baker Library, and Wallace Dailey of the Houghton Library provided thoughtful overviews of Boston business, politics, and landscape. One of my fond memories were hours spent exploring the jumbled deed registry at the Suffolk County Court House, emerging like a miner at the day’s end, covered in crumbling bits of old leather and paper, To have tea with John Morrison.

In New Hampshire, the New Hampshire State Library and the New Hampshire Historical Society provided helpful direction and materials, as did the Moultonborough and Wolfeboro libraries. At the Bald Peak Colony Club in Melvin Village, staff and members provided robust memories, especially Wayne Wakefield, Kip and John Scott, and John and Eleanor Gribbell II. Much help came from local residents, such as Dick Wakefield, Jack Swedberg, Robert Lamprey, Martha Oliver, and Sharon Cormier Theberge.

After the first edition came out, I received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Laval University in Québec, thanks to the efforts of Professor Victor Konrad and his Fulbright Canada Foundation for Educational Exchange. This led to a rewarding seven-year residence for my son Kenai and me in our ancestral homeland as I completed doctorates about the cross-border migration preceding Tom Plant’s era.3 My patron, Professor Serge Courville, had just established the Centre interuniversitaire d’études

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québécoises and said that the geography expressed in my M.A. thesis had moved him to accept me into his program. He provided the support that made this work possible. Our Québec residence greatly enriched this book, as mentors and colleagues encouraged my transborder research – from Professors Yves Roby and Marcel Bélanger to fellow graduate students Pierre Poulin, Michel Boisvert and Marc Hébert. Professors Dean Louder, Eric Waddell and Jean Morisset adopted me into their research family working on French North America, which resulted in publications placing Tom Plant in a continental context. Much succor came from friends, many of whom live and work on both sides of the border. Al Philbrick and Georgette Parent provided lively dinners and good advice. Lilianne Labbe served as a guide and translator. In particular, Pierre and Manon Poulin became family, which led to my happy godson, Pierre-Octave Poulin.

Genealogists, parish priests, local historians, and town clerks provided valuable insights in the search for family members. After a presentation about Tom Plant at the Canadian-American Genealogical Society in Manchester, New Hampshire, Dick Fortin began working on the mystery of Tom Plant’s father’s family. He contacted Paul Plante in Longueuil, Québec at the Association des Familles Plante. Paul did much research among old parish and notarial records and managed to solve the mystery.

Without such deep efforts, many of the problems in this story would never have been resolved.

From around the United States came unexpected sources and assistance – Harold Miller at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Kathleen Reich at Rollins College and Garret Kremer-Wright at the Orange County Regional History Center in Florida, Julie Herrada at the Labadie Collection of the University of Michigan, the Chicago Public Library, and the staff at the New England Region of the National Archives. Lloyd Ferriss and Bill King helped with photography, Ann Hirschi with artistic renditions, and Marty King with text preparation. For help with Civil War research, I appreciate the help of Scott Hann in Mays Landing, New Jersey and Tom Clemens of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation in Sharpsburg, Maryland. For this edition, I value the important help of Bruce Brown and the HBE Foundation of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania for providing the

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funds to make it possible. In preparation of the manuscript, many thanks go to our team in the State of Maine: John Woollacott in Brunswick, Peter Zimowski in Bath, Paula Caggiula and Lilia Bright in Lewiston, Ray and Patricia Estabrook and the Maine Youth Alliance in Belfast, Edward Miller in Penobscot, and Al Trescot in Damariscotta.

Indispensable collaboration came from work with Cristina Ashjian and my cousin Kenneth Plant, and his wife Cheryl Plant. Ken is a greatgrandson of Tom Plant’s brother, William. His work with the U.S. Army led him to focus on the military history of William’s children. In the process, he discovered old photo albums. This led him to establish a website (PlantFamily.com) in order to share information with the public and encourage others to do likewise. Many of the new images in this book come from Ken, as well as insights about family connections.

Cristina is an art and architectural historian who has researched and lectured on Plant’s estate for the past decade. After studies in London, Munich and elsewhere, she lives at Westwynde, which her grandparents purchased when the Plant estate was subdivided in the early 1940s. Cristina also lectures on the country estate movement for the New Hampshire Humanities Council, which led her to amass a detailed overview of the social landscape in early 20th century New England. I greatly appreciate both Ken and Cristina’s help and friendship.

Last but not least, I thank my wife, Penelope Markle, who has been my best editor, as well as my best friend. Without her help, this book would not have been possible. She first encouraged proceeding with this work.

My sons, Kenai Rodrigue and Dimitri Rodrigue, have been instrumental in making me keep a sense of perspective if not humor. Kenai, who has grown to be a man now, has integrated the family lessons of history into a healthy but skeptical view of the world. It’s this realistic view of the limitations of history and the insights it can provide that I seek to share in this book.

A historian is only mortal and only has so much time between changing diapers, trying to maintain a love life, and get enough deer meat in the cold cellar for the winter. There is no doubt that new information, ideas and insights will be forthcoming. Even the smallest scrap of evidence or artifact could be helpful. I would be very grateful if anyone could shed more light

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on the story contained in this book and invite you to please contact us.

Towards this end, we have established a Thomas G. Plant Collection at the Sagadahoc History & Genealogy Room of the Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine. Anyone who has material to deposit or who seeks more information should contact this institution.

Sagadahoc History Room Patten Free Library 33 Summer Street Bath, Maine 04530 USA

Endnotes 1 Barry Rodrigue, Tom Plant, 1992, 1994. The series, Studies of Entrepreneurship, was produced by Garland Publishing in New York City. Garland was an independent, scholarly publisher begun in 1969. They returned the book rights to me before their 1997 acquisition by Tayor & Francis.

2 Bruce Brown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 7 January 2014.

3 This research is being compiled into a book titled, Backwoods Globalization: The Canada Road Frontier, 1500 to 2000. The historical data is housed at the Maine Folklife Center, at the University of Maine in Orono, while the archeological site reports are at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission in Augusta.

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Eugene Victor Debs, French-American candidate for President of the United States, Socialist Party.

Portrait by Robert Shetterly, Brooksville, Maine, Series, Americans who Tell the Truth.

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Prologue: Identity, Heritage & Society Jacques Ferland, Associate Professor History Department, University of Maine, Orono, Maine Much of what we know about Thomas G. Plant (1859–1941) pertains to his assimilation and ascent in U.S. society, rather than to his French-Canadian ethnicity. Plant was celebrated in local newspapers as a self-made employer of thousands of men and women, a forerunner of corporate welfarism, and a philanthropist. In the nation’s trade journals, Plant was also noted as a leading manufacturer of quality shoes for women and the maverick promoter of an alternative shoe-machinery system.

To financial observers, corporate lawyers and politicians, Plant was often singled out in the New York Times and anti-trust documents as a significant threat to the unpopular monopolistic practices of the United Shoe Machinery Company. Even among the eccentric and more socially insulated upper-class elite, the plebian, Roman-Catholic son of Antoine Plante, sailor and Civil War veteran, was better known as the patrician spouse of Caroline A. Griggs of old-stock Yankee roots, bourgeois family, and Baptist persuasion. His nouveau riche aspirations ultimately found their most overt architectural expression in “Lucknow,” a genteel estate above Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.

When considered from the historiographical tradition of the FrancoAmerican past, Plant’s life history does not seem to reveal much about the “French Canadian heritage in New England.” Beyond his ancestral roots in the Province of Quebec and his family background in Maine, his utterances, behavior, achievements and associational life are not the “norms” of a Franco-American as prescribed by academic historians.

Yet Plant’s melting ethnic identity denotes a class phenomenon that was experienced by many bourgeois of French descent – their acculturation to the predominantly anglophone, masculine and extra-familial world of the business elite. While Franco-Americans like Plant, who rushed to attain social status, aspired to “Americanness,” their French-Canadian counterparts held anglophile values.

To illustrate this eclipse of ethnicity, even among French Canada’s most prominent historical figures, historian Brian Young has documented how George-Etienne Cartier – Quebec’s “father of Confederation” – aspired to “Britishness” in his political beliefs and social attitudes, preferred to vacation

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in London and dress like a British gentleman, and failed to conform to the family-oriented values preached by the Catholic Church. To be sure, Cartier was not an English Canadian; he was an anglophile bourgeois of French-Canadian descent who “sought legitimacy and security in British values and institutions.” Cartier’s ethnicity has seldom been questioned, because he spoke French, paid his political tribute to rural Quebec, and held legal residence in la belle province. But if ethnic culture is also to be perceived as a matter of heart, loyalty and allegiance, then Cartier’s first love was undoubtedly for Victorian Britain.1

Eugene Debs & grandchildren, Terre Haute, Indiana, circa 1910, Courtesy of Labadie Collection, University of Michigan,

Conversely, many other outstanding French North Americans are not acknowledged for their “Frenchness,” in spite of noticeable ethnic traits, probably because of their residence outside well-circumscribed ethnic communities in the United States. Students of the Franco-American past never refer, for example, to the Debs family of Terre Haute, Indiana as being Franco-American. Yet, Jean Daniel and Marguerite Marie Debs were French-speaking, Alsatian immigrants, whose children – Marie Marguerite, Louise, Eugenie, Emma, Theodore, and Eugene Victor – maintained strong family ties throughout Eugene V. Debs’ tumultuous life as one of the most legendary U.S. radicals.2 It is also possible that Debs’ “Frenchness,” which

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he personally acknowledged upon first meeting the Duches family of East St. Louis in 1874, may have been disregarded in academia, because the term “Franco-American” generally evokes the U.S. immigrant progeny of late 19th or early 20th century French Canadians.3 Similarly excluded from this literature is Detroit’s socialist and anarchist activist, JosephAntoine Labadie, who was one of Deb’s correspondents.

Labadie could prove an even more challenging ethnic case-study, because of the mixed “identities” from his Métis father and Potawatomi mother.4 While synethnicity Sketch of Jo Labadie, circa 1920, pervades the writing of

by Barnett Braverman. Courtesy of Labadie French-Canadian history in Collection, University of Michigan. western Canada, it remains a comparatively unexplored chapter of Franco-American history.

But how can one explain why the history of Franco-America also neglected “Dilon,” Eugene Deb’s brother-in-law? A Quebec native, whose family emigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1870, Cyprien Odilion Mailloux married Emma Debs in Terre Haute and moved to New York City, where he achieved international prominence in electrical engineering circles.5 Perhaps best described as French Canada’s unrecognized Alexander Graham Bell, Mailloux was the first editor of the journal Electrical World and a founding member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884, over which he presided thirty years later. He engineered the first electric railways in New York City and Washington, D.C., served as consultant to a multinational European corporation whose operations spanned three continents, and lectured at prestigious universities such as Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford.6 Mailloux’s mastery of many languages, “both ancient and modern,”

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bears meaningfully upon the international linguistic realm of la fancophonie.

Even though his professional life was incompatible with the circumscribed parish aspirations of cultural survival in Little Canadas, he actively promoted his linguistic culture as a francophone American among his peers in Paris, Marseilles, Zurich, Turin, and elsewhere in western Europe. Hence, while Cartier spearheaded the codification and standardization of Quebec’s legal system, Mailloux presided over an international conference on the standardization of electrotechnical information; while Cartier subscribed to the Illustrated London News Cyprien Odilion Mailloux, and bought the London Times’ Etiquette Brooklyn, New York, circa for Ladies & Gentlemen, Mailloux read 1920. Courtesy of International and translated French texts and papers on Electrical Engineers. “induction motors” or other specialized topics; and while Cartier aspired to the honors of British peerage, Mailloux was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government as well as honorary president of the Société française des Électriciens.7 Plant, Cartier, Debs, Labadie and Mailloux are all certainly entitled to classification under the abstract category of “French North American” by virtue of their French origins and North American residence. However, in academic reality, only Cartier – perhaps the most anglophile of the five – might be found in both French-Canadian and Franco-American history texts. The life worlds of the other four men remain unknown or beyond the pale in either of these research fields. Indeed, the history of French North Americans has yet to be written in ways that reflect the diverse ethnic realities of their diaspora. Perhaps only by transcending conventional geopolitical boundaries, such as those of Quebec history, and by searching beyond the comforting limits of ethnic parishes and homogenous cultural identities will students be brought face to face with the problems of applying categorical, culturally value-laden words, such as “Franco-American,” to evolving ethnic and class identities. In this respect,

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French Canada’s immigrant progeny in the United States deserves as much attention as the parents or grandparents who first immigrated to work for the Yankees.

Thomas Plant’s life history of acculturation, assimilation and social promotion sheds much needed light on one of those many, largely unknown Franco-Americans who were attracted to venture beyond sight of their church steeples by the American mirage of an infinity of second chances.

What is recounted here may not be the “immigrant odyssey” of a “FrenchCanadian habitant in New England” but the equally meaningful journey of a Franco-American worker along the paths of mechanized shoe production into the ranks of the petite, moyenne and haute bourgeoise. Until further research is conducted on the French-Canadian diaspora in the leather trades, on leading Franco-American inventors, engineers and machinery producers, and on the ethnicity of the French-Canadian/Franco-American bourgeoisie, we must reserve judgment as to the significance of Plant’s journey in the constellation of French North American life histories.

By tracing the background of Plant’s family emigration on a remote dirt road across northern Appalachia in the 1820s, the beginning of the narrative documents how French-Canada’s ethnic dispersion into New England began some forty to fifty years before the rise of French Catholic church steeples. Little is known about this half-century of early migration; as might be expected, it is difficult to find reliable data on trans-border population movement in North America. But while spindle cities and mill towns did form the principal nuclei of French Canada’s immigrant life later in the century, the diaspora first encompassed networks of wageearners who synchronized their departure and itinerary to the varying rhythms of lumbering and log-driving, ice-cutting, seafaring, harvesting, bark-peeling, road-building, and other construction work. Most of these seasonal and peripatetic workers reportedly returned home and are thus labeled “sojourners” in the literature.

However, such categorical distinction cannot hold true for all people, places and historical circumstances; it fails to account for thousands of permanent immigrants, such as the Plante-Rodrigue family, and leaves one wondering about the ethnic identity of others who made trans-border work a recurrent feature of their lives. The tale of an early migratory axis along the Chaudière-Kennebec Road in the opening chapters gives us a borderland perspective – a ligament of French Canada’s exacting physical contribution to New England’s industrial and urban development.

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The chapter about Plant’s family life and early work points to the occupational dimensions of context-dependent ethnicity. Although they often clustered in mono-industrial spindle cities, French-Canadian immigrants also displayed much occupational diversity in the United States. In addition to their widespread involvement in the extraction of nature’s wealth, we find, for instance, that those working in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1872 are listed in a parish census as shoemakers (228), blacksmiths (93), carpenters (87), machinists (53) and laborers (132), as well as unknown numbers of brickmakers, domestics, and seamstresses.8 A similar pattern of work diversity can be documented at their point of departure in Quebec. By the 1860s, French Canadians came, reportedly, because of closing copper mines in Acton Vale, deprivation in the wake of unsuccessful strikes in the boot and shoe industry, the decline of shipbuilding, the application of labor-saving machinery on commercial farms, or because of failing crops along Quebec’s colonization frontier.9 To such socio-economic situations there correspond different ethnic realities that can only be observed by following workers to their job destinations, along the paths of commodity production. Finding his way through the occupational maze of Maine’s economy during the 1870s, Thomas Plant thus came onto a relatively well-beaten path of the diaspora when he migrated to Massachusetts in 1880. It is at this juncture that the historian faces the difficult task of explaining what led this secondgeneration immigrant to the commanding position of industrialist.

While evaluation is intrinsic to the historical process, it is all too easy to uncritically accept the descriptions, explanations and value judgments of contemporary writers. It is also common to appraise a person’s character, intentions and actions in a language and literary form that obscures the divided loyalties and shifting allegiances that we all experience as human beings in the course of our lives. A well-known hearth of labor activism throughout the shoe industry, the bottoming room, where Plant worked as a laster and edge-trimmer, has less frequently been perceived as an arena for the social promotion of skilled, male shoeworkers. Yet, the highly specialized skills of hand-lasters and “machinists” were, in part, socially constructed by a hierarchical strategy of excluding supposedly less-skilled male and female workers from the premises where such “skills” were displayed. Solidarity often coexisted with estrangement and, while many of these “craftworkers” were no doubt inspired by the broad-based movement of the Knights of Labor, the pride of craft could always, and ultimately did, take precedence over more disruptive collective strategies.

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In the boot and shoe industry, themes of craft pride and self-employment bred, among many male workers, aspiration to the higher, middle-class ranks of the mechanical engineer, foreman, labor recruiter, jobber, traveling salesman, and, beyond, to employer. Thus, Plant’s evolving class identity should not necessarily suggest idiosyncrasy or reinforce ethnic stereotypes, such as docility or respect for authority. His accession to the capitalist class reflects, in the long term, the intra-class and inter-class promotional strategies fostered in this male-dominated work environment.

In the chapters, we find much evidence that Thomas Plant’s “agency” as a boot and shoe manufacturer was exerted in many influential ways other than as just an adversarial employer-employee relationship. Following the business strategies of his era, Plant sought to respond to chaotic economic conditions by achieving control of markets, production and politics of capital accumulation.10 In order to control markets, he not only expanded productive capacity beyond the reach of smaller competitors, but he further capitalized on market techniques to defuse a national boycott specifically targeted against his company by the Boot & Shoe Workers Union. To control production, Plant relied on conventional management strategies but also practiced welfarism in a model factory designed to create the image of a corporate family. And to resist monopolistic ownership of his means of production, Plant created his own technological paradigm – an exceptionally bold achievement – and launched a highly publicized anti-trust campaign against one of the most powerful multinational corporations in North America.

For all his achievements, Plant is not the first person of FrenchCanadian descent to beat the odds in leather commodity production. Not a few, in both Canada and the United States, were mechanical engineers who occasionally derived wealth and prestige by contributing to the capitalist quest for control over production. Yet others capitalized on their technological know-how to produce shoe machinery in defiance of the prevalent leasing system and monopolistic control exerted over intellectual property.11 However, Plant drew income from thousands of workers to build up his arsenal against monopoly capital, and his “non-trust” machinery system gave him enough leverage to strike a deal with the very corporation that he had first targeted in assembling this technological “weaponry.”

In a manner of speaking, Plant traded his “Wonder Works” of technology for a wonder world of leisure beyond the reach of either the workers he exploited or the financial giants to whom he paid tribute. The

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final chapters reveal the gentlemanly existence of an aging man, who, like George-Étienne Cartier, was drawn to country life, extra-marital romance, horses, foreign cultures, and travel. However, not unlike many individual “captains of industry” of his era, Plant’s fortune proved evanescent and the material culture of his extravagant lifestyle reflects the eclectic, or pluralistic, character of his class and ethnic identity. In the end, the “Earl of Ossipee Park” may have left his most enduring “trademark” in New Hampshire’s tamed wilderness.

Jacques Ferland is a professor at the University of Maine. He teaches courses in early Canadian, French-Canadian, Native-American and modern United States history. As a researcher, he has devoted close attention to labor and business history, women’s history in the textile industry, rural leather tanning communities in the eastern borderlands of Canada and the United States, and Franco-Penobscot history in 19th century Maine. He publishes in French and English journals. Among his works are: “Canadiens, Acadiens, & Canada: Knowledge & Ethnicity in Labour History,” Labour/Le Travail: A Canadian Retrospective — Class, Gender, & Nation 50, Fall 2002. “‘Not For Sale’: American Technology & Canadian Shoe Factories: The United Shoe Machinery Company of Canada, 1899–1912,” The American Review of Canadian Studies 18 (1), Spring 1988: 59–82.

“Syndicalisme ‘parcellaire’ & syndicalisme ‘collectif ’: une interpretation socio-technique des conflits ouvriers dans deux industries québecoises,” Labour/Le Travail 19, Spring 1987: 49–88.

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Endnotes 1 Young.

2 Constantine.

3 See, for instance: Roby, Weil.

4 Oestreicher. Likewise, the French-American social activist, Voltairine de Cleyre, also from Michigan, is also left out of historical studies.

5 New York Times, “Dr. C.O. Mailloux, Engineer, Dies at 71,” 6 October 1932.

6 James T. White & Company, 26: 428–429.

7 James T. White & Company, 26: 428–429. Electrical World, 1906–1918.

8 Chandonnet.

9 These reasons are drawn from the journals Le Courrier de St. Hyacinthe, Le Défricheur, and La Minerve.

10 American Social History Project: 28–29.

11 Cursory research in the Canadian and United States patent office records reveals many francophone names of people who were occasionally noted in other sources as prominent figures in the boot and shoe industry. Louis Goddu of St. Césaire, near St. Hyacinthe, applied for about 300 patents, while working for Gordon McKay’s metallic fastening machinery firms in Lowell, Northampton and Winchester, Massachusetts. Ernest Côté and Isaïe Fréchette in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec; Zotique Beaudry in Fitchburg, Massachusetts; Michel Brunet in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, and Haverhill, Massachusetts; and Louis Caron in Quebec City, Quebec also drew attention beyond their communities as inventors, mechanical engineers, and shoe machinery producers. Both Brunet and Caron confronted the United Shoe Machinery Company several years before Thomas G. Plant promoted his own machinery systems.

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The Geography of Thomas G. Plant Cartography by Raymond Estabrook, 1993

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Chapter I – Introduction Tom Plant (1859–1941) rose from poverty in an ethnic neighborhood of Maine, became a shoe worker and started his own firm by the age of twentyseven. He adopted modern designs in footwear, factories and marketing to become, by 1910, one of the most successful shoe manufacturers in the United States. Not content with these accomplishments, he went on to develop shoe-making machinery. This led him into conflict with the giant United Shoe Machinery Company (USMC) and the pivotal event of his career. Popular myths obscured Plant’s life in the years following this conflict, but the realities were far more significant than the legends. The curious set of contradictions in his life was posed by Chinese economic historian Sun Chao: Thomas Plant is not a household name, but he is posed as a model for a “new American.” His ancestors moved from France to Canada, but he was not considered a French-Canadian. He learned how to succeed magnificently in Yankee society, but his failure in this system was colossal. He was a successful member of society, but he remained on the fringes of the Boston elite. He was Thomas Gustave Plant, one of the great entrepreneurs of the early 20th century.1 Plant’s life has been described as a Horatio Alger story, but he did not simply marry the boss’ daughter and achieve middle-class stability. Nor did he retreat into a rich but bitter isolation like Charles Foster Kane (Plant died the year that the film Citizen Kane was released). Some have even proposed him as a forerunner of software entrepreneur Bill Gates. However, Plant’s story has a greater significance than such comparisons might suggest, as he is representative of the struggle for economic and ethnic opportunity in the United States.

One of the problems of business and ethnic studies is that success or failure is generally emphasized to the exclusion of each other. For every Tom Plant there were tens of thousands of failed businesses and bankrupted entrepreneurs. Focusing on success is like giving a mariner a chart without reefs or shoals marked down, a sure map for disaster.2 Such untempered optimism is especially dangerous today with the rapid economic, social and environmental changes that are underway. It is also a poor decision to focus on only the negative images of discrimination and to ignore success.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Ethnic studies are replete with examples of repression and tragedy. A balance is needed between failure and achievement.

Two colleagues read my manuscript and were puzzled by its ethnic focus.

One asked why I chose to focus on Plant’s ethnicity; he thought it relatively unimportant. The other asked what made me think that Plant was a FrancoAmerican; he thought Plant totally assimilated by Anglo-American society.

Their questions gave me pause. The ethnic context had seemed so central to me that I had assumed that it would be equally so to others. It is Tom Plant’s French-Canadian heritage that makes his story so compelling. The late 19th century was a time when many entrepreneurs took advantage of changing technology and administration to go from rags to riches. Plant was only one of many in this capitalist litany of success. However, since French North Americans have so many negative stereotypes foisted upon them, Plant is an important refutation of the myth of Franco-American maladroitness and lack of business acumen.

Biography is an excellent way to study ethnicity. More importantly, it is a preliminary step in writing an accurate history of the French in North America. Even a Franco-American scholar told me that he felt it was impossible to determine the origins of the French who immigrated to New England. This book is a refutation of such a defeatist attitude. The research is not easily accomplished, but it can be done. It is necessary to do it in order to clear away the prejudice and stereotypes that have settled around French North Americans. Yankee hostility to the descendants of French settlers in what became New England has manifested itself in different ways for over a century. On one hand, there has been the violence of the Know-Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan. On another, schools prohibited the French language from being spoken and hired French workers primarily as laborers. Such public racism has been further institutionalized by academia.3 In the early 20th century, a group of influential social scientists – inspired by members of the University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology – focused on urban and ethnic studies. Several members of the Chicago School judged French Canadians deficient in entrepreneurial skill and handicapped in upward mobility by a conservative, rural French society and an entrenched English urban elite. These views have been continued by contemporary social scientists who interpret the French struggle for cultural survival in North America as an atavistic endeavor.4 By extension, Franco-Americans in New England have been painted with this same brush of discrimination. Such academic views tend to provide a deterministic model that cause ethnic success and adaptation to be overlooked.5

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

The North American French share a unique ethnic situation with the North-American Spanish, and both groups are closely linked with Indigenous Americans. However, Anglo-dominance in North America has obscured these traditions and forced on them the role of “intruders.”

French and Spanish societies, let alone Indigenous peoples, predate English settlement of the continent. But, Francos in the Northeast and Chicanos in the Southwest have been repressed by an English-establishment that says that multiculturalism will lead to chaos.

In fact, to be Franco or Chicano is not the same as being PolishAmerican or Irish-American. Both the French and Spanish cultures exist in territories that they once claimed and inhabited, adjacent to their own core political states of Québec and Mexico. These distinct societies are at the heart of the fight for cultural pluralism and are very much a contemporary issue. The story of Tom Plant sheds new light on the background of that struggle.

Tom Plant was the first major Franco-American industrialist, a vastly successful entrepreneur and the wealthiest individual of his ethnicity and generation. But while most Franco-American entrepreneurs worked in and made their success from the Franco-American community, Plant did not. His success was external to and in spite of his heritage. Nonetheless, he was also one of a progressive group of French North American shoemanufacturers and inventors who fought the United Shoe Machinery Company and sought to break into a new era of industrial production.

The story of Tom Plant raises questions. What drove a first generation Franco-American boy from a poor family on the fringe of industrial New England to become the most successful shoe manufacturer in North America? Why did he achieve such success in an era of Franco-American adversity? What is the significance of his life? What skills did he use and what itinerary did he follow that allowed him to succeed? Why was he especially receptive to market signals and able to take advantage of them? Why did many of the early challenges to the United Shoe Machinery Company come from a cadre of French North American entrepreneurs? In short, we have to look for the reasons for Plant’s success. Genius is not enough.

It is important to realize that Tom Plant’s family arrived in New England almost two generations before the more popularly known mill migrations of 1870–1920. This allowed for the family’s relatively easy assimilation into Yankee society. Later immigrants were not so readily accepted. So we must ask if there were factors in Tom Plant’s youth that made him defy prevailing Franco-American stereotypes and achieve such remarkable success.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Did Tom Plant hide his ethnic heritage or did he comfortably exist in two worlds? While I don’t believe that Franco-American society was a vital factor in Plant’s success, I do believe that Tom Plant is vital to an understanding of Franco-American culture. Besides being a biography, I hope this work will help to redefine the concept of “Franco-American.” Tom Plant does not fall into the popularly perceived range of Franco-American lifestyles. This discrepancy is important, as the last decades have seen a significant upsurge of research and publication about Franco-Americans.

At its most general level, “Franco-American” refers to the descendants of French immigrants to the Western Hemisphere. Such a broad definition is seldom utilized. More often, the term defines the descendants of French Canadian immigrants to the United States – usually Québécois. As such, it is used in popular survey works by authors like Robert Rumilly, Gerard Brault, Yves Roby, François Weil and Armand Chartier, as well as in scholarly monographs like those of Ralph Vicero and James Allen.6 These authors, to varying degrees, have further specified it.

Franco-Americans are popularly categorized in what amounts to a “litany” of stereotypes – French-Canadian immigrants to the United States, between 1870 and 1920, who grew up in ghetto-like petits canadas of New England industrial towns, worked in mills, spoke French, worshipped in the Roman Catholic faith, voted conservative political agendas, and generally did not assimilate into Yankee society until after World War II. Their French leadership depended on industrial workers and felt that by maintaining the French language and French parishes they could promote survivance – the survival of not only French traditions in the Protestant Yankee world, but also their own dominance. In this way, class interest mingled with ethnicity.7 However, such a narrow category has become a hidebound stereotype that collapses the various waves of French-Canadian immigration into one identity. Anyone outside of that experience, such as Tom Plant, simply does not exist. To my mind, such a restrictive definition distorts a rich and varied heritage. Because of this limitation, much of the current literature about Franco-Americans is only marginally applicable to my study. These volumes usually limit their discussion of the early migration to a brief “Chapter One,” state that little is known about it, and then devote the rest of the book to French-Canadian immigrants after 1870. We shall see that Tom Plant was a very different type of Franco-American.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

The writing of the present volume has been difficult. Almost all of Plant’s papers are missing, so I’ve had no single corpus of primary materials on which to draw. The assembling of documents was a major undertaking.

There is an advantage though – I am not relying on a few biased sources.

This book has been built from the ground up, from a very diverse selection of materials. Surviving data is more available at the end of Plant’s life than at the beginning. This has forced me to downplay some sections, like the well-documented Shoe Machinery War, for the sake of a balanced narrative.

This study demonstrates the need to redefine French society in North America.8 Many scholars who have researched French-Canadian immigration to the United States have looked at the big picture and only made spot investigations of small stories. Macrohistory has dominated microhistory, and there has been insufficient integration of the two approaches. Scholars have largely started with tried and true stereotypes from elite reportage and English-Canadian sources. Although there is a deficiency of data about the French-Canadian migration to the United States prior to 1870, it is not impossible to reconstruct.

I believe that a detailed investigation of sources in the United States will considerably change French North American studies. By seeing the wider world in which the French of North America lived, we will provide a wider acceptance of experience for the North American French of today.9 History is an accumulative process. The story of Tom Plant is not just the story of French heritage, it is also the story of shoes, Canada, roads, ice, the United States, the industrial revolution, family relations, Québec, labor unions, sports, New England, horses, machinery, farms, law courts, and global connections. Tom Plant’s story is part of their story and our own stories.

Endnotes 1 Professor Sun Chao is an economic historian at Shandong Normal University in Jinan, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China. He is a specialist in reform movements in the United States during the Progressive Era (1890–1920).

2 Thompson.

3 One of the best essays about the racism against French Canadians in New England is C. Stewart Doty’s “How Many Frenchmen Does It Take to...?”. These issues are also described throughout the book, Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader, by Nelson Madore and Barry Rodrigue.

5

A Castle in the Clouds: 4 The Chicago School refers to members of Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Chicago and their disciples at other institutions in the first half of the 20th century. Academics at this department never accepted the idea of a unified school or approach, but outsiders began to label them as such in the 1930s, and then codified their perceptions in the 1960s. The Chicago School advocated for social reform and empirical data collection. McGill University, an English institution in Montréal, established a Department of Sociology in 1922. They recruited graduates from the University of Chicago, who began to study French Canadians in a negative and ethnocentric way. These scholars then influenced other Québec schools. Harvey: 1–22, 5, 218. Shore: 68–70, 253–260, 268–271. Persons: 28–44. Falardeau: 144–145. Handler.

5 Tom Plant’s success was a reason for his heritage being eroded. People assumed that he was an “enterprising Yankee” from an old New England family because French Canadians and Franco-Americans were considered business failures by the dominant Anglo worldview. There were Yankee industrial families having the same family name. One of them was that of A.H. and E.M. Plant, who established the Plants Manufacturing Company in Southington, Connecticut in 1842 at a location that became known as “Plantsville.” U.S., Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Plantsville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places, Southington, Connecticut, 1 December 1988, Section 8: 3.

6 Some of the case studies are Rumilly; Brault; Roby; Chartier; James Allen; and Vicero, Immigration of French Canadians to New England.

7 Barry Rodrigue, “The Cultural Trigonometry of Franco-American Stereotypes.”

8 French North American societies change through time. It took a century for the exiled Acadians in Louisiana to become “Cajuns,” just as their current national prestige is the result of decades of folk revival.

9 My professional research and writing on French North America began with this work on Tom Plant. Some of the more important publications are as follows.

Barry Rodrigue, “The Cultural Trigonometry of Franco-American Stereotypes”; “Tom Plant, la route du Canada et les stéréotypes sur les Franco-Américains”; “An Album in the Attic”; “Francophones…pas toujours, mais francos toujours!”

Courville, Rodrigue, Poulin, & Provonost. Madore & Rodrigue.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Chapter II – Family Migrations Tom Plant’s parents were Antoine Plante and Sophie Rodrigue. Their families had lived in Canada and Acadia for two centuries before migrating to what would become the State of Maine. The progenitor of the Plante family came to North America from the village of Laleu, in the province of Aunis, on the central coast of France, and married in Québec in 1650. They settled on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River for six generations before migrating to Maine. The progenitor of the Rodrigue family was a Sephardic mariner from Portugal who married in Québec in 1671. They moved up the Rivière Chaudière by 1745 and were one of the pioneer families in Nouvelle Beauce.1 It is difficult to discuss the eastern borderlands of Canada and the United States. The names for its segments have changed considerably in the last five hundred years. During the colonial era, New France consisted of Canada along the St. Lawrence valley and Acadia in the Maritimes.

Most of what is now the State of Maine lay in Acadia. The political borders changed through treaties and wars, migrations and economic necessity.

Canada expanded west into the Great Lakes and the Mississippi valley.

New England encroached into southern and coastal Maine. Acadia fell to the British. After British occupation of Canada in 1760, they divided the province into Lower Canada and Upper Canada, then into Canada East and Canada West, and finally renamed them Ontario and Québec after the confederation of British North America and transference of the name, Canada, to the new dominion in 1867.

The Beauce is a rectangular county on the border of southeast Quebec and northwest Maine. Bisected by the Chaudière River, it developed a very distinct regional culture. Although a majority of French Canadians remained along the St. Lawrence River, one of their forays into the interior went up the Chaudière. These French frontier folk settled along a route between Québec and New England. Yankee merchants traveling to Québec brought news from the United States, while mining and forest harvests supplemented their agriculture. The Beaucerons gained a reputation for being shrewd traders. Isolation from government centers made them more independent than the already independent habitants.2 Sophie’s great-grandfather was Jean Rodrigue. Just after the Seven Year’s War and the British take-over of Canada, Jean purchased a tract of land in the frontier area of the Beauce. It would appear that the Conquest provided

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him with an opportunity for upward mobility. However, it was a window soon closed, as enterprise and land-acquisition consolidated into the hands of English merchants and their elite French-Canadian allies. By 1773, Jean Rodrigue could not maintain his obligations and was compelled to sell his holdings to a neighboring seigneur of the petite noblesse.3 In the space of ten years, the Rodrigue family fortune had risen and set.

Family turmoil continued. The Revolutionary War encouraged opposition to the new Anglo-French regime in Canada. An army under Benedict Arnold invaded through Maine and the Beauce to attack the British in Québec in 1778. Two of Jean Rodrigue’s children, Pierre and Charles, assisted the Yankee invaders. Such resistance motivated the British to send patrols and garrison troops in the Beauce in order to block further disturbances. Another son, Joseph, became a marguillier (church warden) of Saint François. In 1834, a disagreement over leadership in the new parish of St. Georges led to threats of excommunication.4 This dispute was not totally ecclesiastical. Economic disruption had set the stage.

Canadian Wedding, 1840, James Drummond.

Courtesy of André Gladu, Montréal, Québec

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The economic base of the Beauce was agricultural. Bad weather could devastate harvests. A brutally cold year occurred in 1815–1816, a destructive hail storm at harvest time in 1829, followed by untimely frosts and excessive rains in 1834. The Lower Canadian wheat economy collapsed after the Napoleonic Wars, as it came under competition from more productive Upper Canadian farms. And the economic problems leading into the Panic of 1837 compounded natural disaster with poor market factors. By 1837, Le Canadien reported that the communities of Saint-Georges and Saint-François suffered “une excessive misère.”5 Sophie’s parents, Jean Rodrigue and Agathe Fortin, were married in 1817 at Saint François. They had seven children, including Sophie, who was born in 1823. Although a farmer, Jean and Agathe’s family was among the earliest to go to Maine, in the 1820s. Their move reflected the indecisive nature of life in the Beauce and developing opportunities in les états. At first, they went as wage laborers. Perhaps migration for temporary work seemed to be a good short-term way to obtain cash for maintenance of family farms, weathering of bad harvests, and competition in the developing market economy of Lower Canada.6 The French Canadians who came to Maine in the 1820s and 1830s were wilderness settlers, as much as those families who went to Upper Canada.

Instead of traveling west, they moved into the wilderness to their southeast – as they had been doing for a hundred years. Their migration took place almost fifty years before the large 1870–1920 Québécois mill migrations.

In addition to these “push” factors, many “pull” factors drew these habitants to Maine. The newly opened Canada Road made travel more practical for entire families and for those seeking seasonal jobs. The road and a history of trans-border commerce demonstrate that these migrants were not walking into the unknown.

Beauce, Maine & the Canada Road In the early 19th century, the Beauce and Maine were still wilderness areas of Québec and New England. They possessed fertile land along their river valleys, but their real wealth lay in trees. The Chaudière and Kennebec river systems provided axes of communication in each area, which led to a special relationship.

The Chaudière River flows north-north-west for 185 kilometers (115 miles) from Lac Mégantic to the Saint Lawrence River. The Kennebec

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A Castle in the Clouds:

River runs south 241 kilometers (150 miles) from Moosehead Lake to the Atlantic Ocean. Although a narrow, marshy “height-of-land� separates the watersheds from each other, a portage route connected them over the mountains. In this way, voyageurs traveled between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. The route had been used for centuries by Indigenous Americans and Europeans.

S.L. Dashiell, Map of the Northern part of the State of Maine & of the adjacent British Provinces, Washington, 1830. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Archives, Boston.

After the colonial wars that had embroiled New France and New England, Maine experienced a significant population growth from the

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

arrival of farmers from southern New England.7 As coastal and tidal lands filled up, newcomers went inland. The mid-Kennebec area began to create a surplus for export. Local timber, granite and agricultural products went out; manufactured goods came in. After the War of 1812, the town of Bath, at the mouth of the Kennebec River, became the region’s major port. Vessels cleared for Boston, New York, and overseas. New technology entered the region. In 1816, the first steamboat on the Kennebec operated out of Bath and, seven years later, made regular runs to the up-river communities of Gardiner, Hallowell, Augusta, and Waterville.8 Maine began to prosper from its resources and carrying trade.

The Kennebec valley faces north, as well as south. As the Yankees moved further up the Kennebec, they found themselves closer to the population center of Québec City than Boston. This proximity brought about increased trade, primarily for drovers and their livestock bound for the Québec City market.9 A Maine surveyor, John Merrick, laid out a Chaudière-Kennebec road in 1810 as an improvement on the rough trail system. The Lower Canadians began to build part of this road by 1815.

New Englanders called it the “Canada Road” and the “Quebec Road,” while Canadians referred to it as the “Kennebec Road.” The different names reflected their orientation. As an exporter, Maine stood to profit most from this international connection.10 The resulting Canada Road was part of a national campaign for internal improvement. In the early 19th century, the federal government developed a road and canal system to help “cement the union” and promote commerce.

Projects not sponsored by the national government were taken up by the states. This grand plan included the Erie Canal from the Great Lakes to the Hudson River, the National Road from Maryland to Ohio, and a turnpike from Maine to Georgia.11 The Massachusetts legislature authorized construction of the Kennebec Road in 1817. Specifications for the “traveled path” called for trees to be taken up by the roots to a width of fifteen feet and to be made suitable for the passage of loaded carts, sleds and other such conveyances. It was a rough life for settlers, drovers, and travelers alike. The few residents on the Maine-Lower Canada border hoped for a carriage road at a time when wolves would surround houses during hungry times and howl until dawn.12 The District of Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820, but carried on many of the Commonwealth’s projects. The State of Maine upgraded the Canada Road to a carriageway in 1828, reflecting its increase in resource,

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A Castle in the Clouds:

manufacture, and farm production. Development of infrastructures by the state and its communities also began in earnest at this time, while many mill towns also got a start through the efforts of entrepreneurs.13 However, Maine did not have sufficient workers to do these public works projects or even small-scale industry. Soil exhaustion and bad weather cycles had befallen Yankee farmers – just as they had befallen their neighbors in Lower Canada. Many New Englanders had given up their farms and migrated to the rich farmlands of the trans-Appalachian West.

Maine industry was thus denied employees from local farming families.14 It was in response to this need for workers in a period of growth that the first French Canadians came to Maine. The new capital in Augusta was one of the sites that drew workers.

The new state had been in search of a capital site. After much political disagreement, Augusta was chosen, half-way up the Kennebec River in central Maine. The cornerstone of the new state house was laid in 1829.

Augusta was not large; much work needed to be done to make it into a capital city. Residents hoped for not only an administrative future, but also laid plans for new large-scale industries, such as a dam to power mills.15 The construction in Augusta, as well as in other parts of central and southern Maine, drew workers.

Canada Road, Sandy Bay Mountain, Maine, 1913. By Zilla Holden.

Courtesy of Ruth Reed, Jackman, Maine.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Jean Rodrigue first appears in Maine with his family at this time, as does Antoine Plant. According to oral tradition, the Rodrigue family came to Maine “through the woods.” Although their last three children were born in Maine between 1829 and 1833, they were baptized in the Beauce parish of Saint-François.16 This discrepancy between their place of birth and their baptism indicates a migratory work pattern.

The trip would take up to a week. In the 1820s, we find the first recurring references to the settlement of French Canadians in Kennebec River towns. However, they were going against the flow at this time – most of the traffic went north. Until 1832, the Canada Road was viewed primarily as a drovers’ route from Maine to Canada.17 Few reports mention traffic coming to Maine, except for the return of round-trip travelers.

Antoine Plante’s family came from the farming and fishing communities surrounding the village of St. Michel de Bellechasse, along the St. Lawrence River and adjacent to the Beauce. A closely timed set of tragedies led to his father becoming a member of the Plante family. He had been an illegitimate son of Jean-Guillaume Corriveau. Corriveau’s wife had died in childbirth in 1772, along with their infant son. Corriveau conceived Jean-Guillaume with an unidentified woman four months after his wife’s death but married a different woman before his son’s birth. The boy was given to Pierre Plante and Marie Catherine Chartier, who had just lost a new-born girl. JeanGuilaume Plant and Marie Victoire Betil were married in 1794. There are indications that Antoine was born into a troubled family situation in 1813.

Eight years later, his older brother, François, was charged with attempted murder and threat of murder against their father.

In 1835, 22-year old Antoine went south to Maine, while most of his family moved downriver to the area of Rimouski. He stated that his “port of entry” into Maine was Augusta, which would indicate that he had migrated down the Canada Road to seek work in building the new capital. Other relatives appear to have soon followed.18 Most French-Canadian travelers did not linger on the road in the 1820s and 1830s. A majority were sojourners, making money in Maine to take back to Canada to maintain or acquire farms. They were a generation moving along the Chaudière and Kennebec Rivers – oiseaux de passage... en quète d’ailleurs – birds of passage...in quest of elsewhere. They would go to industrial centers downriver where other habitants had settled. In 1831, a small colony of about 150 French Canadians were living in Waterville.19

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Traditional and popular interpretations have tended to blame the early French-Canadian migration on poverty and to link them to the Canadian Rebellions of 1837–1838. This focus distorts reality. The migrations began a decade before, and the Beaucerons did not participate significantly in the conflict.20 In other words, the migration was as much of a symptom of social and economic change as the Rebellions.

There are no hard figures about the numbers of French Canadians to leave Lower Canada before 1840. Geographer Ralph Vicero estimates that 2500 French Canadians immigrated to Maine by 1840, then 3680 by 1850, and 7490 by 1860. Comparing these figures to demographer Yolande Lavoie’s calculations, it represents about 10% of the number of French Canadians migrating to the United States – primarily to the border states, from Maine to Wisconsin.21 The migration from Lower Canada reached such a proportion by 1849 that a committee of the Canadian government took the matter under consideration. Although representing stereotypes of the period, they set out eight classes of emigrants, of which Jean Rodrigue and Agathe Fortin’s family would have come under the fourth category: Children from good families of farmers. Cause of emigration.

Difficulty to obtain land because of its high price. Refusal of seigneurs to concede lands. Demands of the large landholders. Lack of roads and ease of communication. Failure of instruction and creduluity among the young people. Contagion by example. Lack of foresight by parents who failed to consider the purchase of land for their children but allowed the farms to be divided between them.22 The government’s proposed solutions were too little, too late. The Kennebec Road had already claimed the Plante and Rodrigue families.

None of Jean Rodrigue and Agathe Fortin’s seven children married in Lower Canada.23 One can almost hear their old father, the marguillier, reluctantly advise his children to seek opportunity across the border. It was a pattern that would increase as the century progressed.

French-Canadian Colonization of Maine The first French-Canadian migration was indecisive – some came, some stayed, some left. The early Plante and Rodrigue immigrants to Maine in the

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

1820s and 1830s provided a solid reference point for their later migrating kin, as when François Rodrigue came down the Kennebec Road with his family in the 1830s, worked for awhile in Maine, returned to Saint-François, and then permanently moved to Fairfield by 1850. These are examples of “chain migration” and “chain employment” – where relatives, friends and neighbors secured housing and employment for their compatriots.24 The pull factor of this migration was that Maine needed workers. The opening of the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi led to “Ohio Fever,” as New Englanders flocked to the more fertile lands seized from Native Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. When the industrial Revolution came to New England in the 1820s and 1830s,

Maine river scene, mid-19th century, John Francis Sprague, Sebastian Rale, Deering Collection, Courtesy of the Maine Historical Society

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A Castle in the Clouds:

there was no surplus population from which to draw, except farm families in Canada. One of the more complete English language views of early French-Canadian settlement along the Kennebec River came from the pen of the U.S. writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the summer of 1837, the 33-year old Hawthorne visited his old college friend, Horatio Bridge, for a month in Augusta, Maine. Bridge was the son of a local politician and had orchestrated construction of an extensive dam across the Kennebec River.25 It was coincidental that Bridge was learning French and dealing with French Canadian workers in the presence of a noted writer.

Hawthorne saw the countryside rolling back from the river with much forest in the valleys and on the hills. The land was good. One-story farm houses with large barns looked comfortable and neat, none out-of-repair.

Augusta seemed “white” from a distance because of its new state house and church steeples. Between 1830 and 1840, Augusta’s population grew from just less than 4000 to over 5000 inhabitants.26 The city was in a state of construction.

Quarrymen blasted rocks two or three times a day and the roar echoed through the city; chaises and wagons on the road stopped to allow their passengers to view the dam while rafts of boards navigated through a gap left mid-stream; a steam engine could be heard “puffing and panting” day and night across the river; the constant hammering mingled with the voices of the French and Irish workers. Mansions under construction contrasted with “board-built and turf-buttressed hovels” that were “scattered about as if they had sprung up like mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks of the river.” The stage traveling north from Augusta in the fresh morning air would arrive in Bangor by dusk with shaken and dirty passengers.27 Maine was in the early stages of the industrial revolution. The immigration of French Canadian and Irish workers was welcomed by the contractors and developers. Hawthorne thought it peculiar to hear Irish Gaelic and children bargaining in French as they went door to door selling strawberries “in the center of Yankeeland.”28 The Irish and French lived in two or three small villages on the outskirts of Augusta. Their houses could be built in three to four days and were valued at four to five-dollars. Up to twenty people might live in a hut less than twenty feet square (six square meters). Earth would be piled up to two or three feet (half to one meter) thick against the outer walls, and occasionally sods covered the roofs, making an almost subterranean dwelling. Clay and boards or an old barrel, smoked and charred by fire, would serve as a chimney.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Evidently the heavy construction on the dam was winding down.

Many of the people occupying these villages during Hawthorne’s visit were squatters who had moved in after the 1836 work season. The families sold and exchanged the rights of occupancy between themselves.29 The French Canadians were described as never quarreling amongst themselves and seldom with their neighbors. They were frugal and often went back to Canada with good savings. Nonetheless, Hawthorne saw Bridge intervene in an argument between a French Canadian and a Yankee.

The French Canadian had struck the Yankee’s oxen for some reason.

Despite Bridge’s much celebrated skill at negotiation, the French Canadian “thrashed the Yankee soundly” and had to pay a $12 fine.30 Hawthorne shared accommodations with Bridge and his Alsatian French tutor, Monsieur Schaeffer. Hawthorne sympathized with Schaeffer’s situation of “teaching French to blockheads who sneer at him.” Schaeffer deplored the Yankees and would vent his feelings to his friend Bridge: “Je hais – Je hais les Yankees!”31 There was an obvious contradiction in Yankee society and even in Hawthorne’s writing of a genuine appreciation of high French culture but a depreciation of French people, especially the Canadian French.

Completion of the dam did not end the need for French and Irish workers in the Kennebec valley. It was hoped that Augusta would become “a second Lowell for manufacturers.” Sawmills and machine shops grew near the dam and, in 1846, the first cotton mill was built, along with a flour mill. Fires, floods and other disasters required almost continual maintenance. A small freshet weakened the dam in 1838 and a major one the next year. Workers were needed to repair the dam, as well as to work in mills powered by it.32 There is indication that if the Plante and Rodrigue families had not been acquainted before their migration, they became acquainted soon afterwards.

Unlike later French-Canadian migrations, the early French Canadians who set up residence in Maine were rapidly assimilated. A superficial hallmark of these early migrations down the Kennebec is that the participants quickly had their surnames anglicized.

In general, the early immigrants could not write their names and accepted spellings given them by Yankees who were illiterate in French. Different pronunciations by the variety of accents in Lower Canada quickly rendered a variety of spellings for the same name. Although the changing of names is primarily an indicator of illiteracy, the retention of these spellings also serves as an assimilation marker. The spelling of “Plante” is found only among the

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A Castle in the Clouds:

family in Canada; the loss of their final “e” must have been coincident with their immigration to Maine in the 1830s. Rodrigue was anglicized first to “Rodring” in the 1840s, evolved to “Rodrick” and then “Roderick” by midcentury, as it was standardized by the early 20th century.33 This name changing was a minor symptom of larger changes to come, a product of a few thousand French Canadians adrift in a sea of Yankees.

The newcomers would learn English, change their names and religion, take unusual employment and patriotically participate in U.S. events. Tom Plant was of these families and it was a significant factor in his rise to success, since Bath was a booming center of work, opportunity and hope.

Arrival in Bath, Maine Jean and Agathe Rodrigue settled in Bath, which lay at the southern end of the Kennebec Road. After the War of 1812, Bath became a center of industry and the busiest Maine port to the east of Portland. Known as the “Shipbuilding City,” it was said to have had its vessels wrecked on the coast of every continent in the world. A joke said that Bath shipwrights built their vessels by the mile, just sawing them off and fitting on bow and stern. A thriving economy based on the West Indies and European trade also flourished. Merchant capital cultivated industrial enterprise and political power. The town became a center of republican sentiment, home to the movement for Maine to secede from Massachusetts and residence of Maine’s first governor. The town was incorporated as a city and had three newspapers by the mid-19th century.34 It was only natural that the Rodrigue and Plant families would have been attracted to Bath and that they and their children would have found work in its energetic and growing industries.

French residents were not an unknown sight in the lower Kennebec valley. In 1752, over thirty Lutherans from the east of France and Calvinists from the south and west of France had settled in Dresden, just up-river from Bath. These and others who had come to New England and the Maritimes had prospered.35 The entire State of Maine had only two Roman Catholic parishes before 1830 and, although there was an estimated half-million residents in Maine by 1841, only six more formed by 1850. A parish served as an assimilation marker for Catholics – only a sufficient number of resident parishioners with sufficient capital could maintain one. Until such a threshold was

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

reached, Catholic rites were usually performed by traveling priests, missionnaires de passage, who would periodically make a circuit from their home parishes through the unorganized regions of Maine.36

Riverview of Bath, Maine, 1858. Drawn by A.C. Warren, woodblock engraving by F.E. Fox. Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine.

Although Bath came to be dominated by the carrying trade, it did not offer only one occupation to poor immigrants. Bath depended on the maritime trade, but it required many support industries such as foundries, lumber mills, brickyards, sail lofts, cordage and ropewalks, as well as the making of ship components such as water tanks, windlasses, and anchors. This variety of industry allowed French Canadians to take any number of jobs. Early records show that Antoine Plant worked as a sailor and fisherman. His brother-in-law, Levi Roderick, found work as a brass moulder.37 These are occupations not usually associated with FrenchCanadian workers in Maine.

The French found work alongside the Irish in Bath. Like the French Protestants, early Scots-Irish settlers of the 18th century had come to Maine.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Their numbers were swollen by early 19th century Irish from the Maritimes and Lower Canada, Irish laborers from southern New England, and Irish refugees from the Great Famine. The Plant/Rodrigue family’s first interethnic marriage took place in 1844. Reverend John Deering performed the ceremony and seems to have been the minister of an unorganized Protestant sect.38 The lack of priests in Maine could have been a reason for Catholics to change their religion. There were external pressures, too, such as the Know-Nothing Movement.

In the second quarter of the 19th century, social and economic problems in the United States stimulated the development of mutual aid societies, some of which in turn became – after the Panic of 1837– paramilitary hate groups. “Native” Americans – White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestants born in the United States – identified their socio-economic problems as the fault of immigrant and Catholic workers.39 These organizations received the generic name of “Know-Nothing” because, when asked of their organization, they would reply “I know nothing.” Two of these groups, in Maine, were the “Rough & Readys” in Ellsworth and the “Hindoo Sect” in Bangor. Bath seems to have had little Know Nothing organization, but did have a significant event of spontaneous violence.

Third phase, burning of Old South Church,Bath, 1854.

Oil painting by John Hilling. Courtesy of Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine.40

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On 6 July 1854, a street speaker excited crowds with an anti-Catholic message. A mob broke away from his gathering to converge on the Old South Meeting House, which had been recently rented by local Catholics.

The church was ransacked and burned. Riots continued for five days.

Families were threatened, their houses pelted with sticks and stones, and one house reportedly destroyed.

City officials and police did little, although there were heroic acts to halt the mob. One person was arrested for the violence, but was not convicted. The Catholic Society of Bath presented local industrialist Oliver Moses with a silver service to honor his intervention on their behalf during the riots.41 The “Plant” and “Roderick” families weathered this violence and first appear in the federal census of Bath in 1850. Although they don’t have obviously French neighbors, French names do appear in small, diffused clusters throughout Bath. Antoine Plant was listed, in 1850, as living at a boarding establishment. Sophie and their three children lived separately in a house. This living arrangement could have been a factor of Antoine’s work, since it was customary for mariners to room together just before clearing port.42 It could also indicate marriage difficulties.

Antoine and Sophie had two older mystery children. Joseph carried the surname of Rogers, which could have been a corruption of Rodrigue, and was not born in Bath. Fannie is never mentioned as living in Bath.

These two could have been born on the family’s move in search of work or they could have been adopted. Antoine and Sophie had several children in Maine, but their early family life was filled with heartbreak. Lucy Ann had been born in 1847, but died from scarlet fever at three years of age.

Anthony Plant, Jr. was born in 1852, but died from an unknown cause at fourteen months of age.

Another little girl had been born in 1856, but died from lung fever at two years of age. These child deaths could have been due to poor living conditions while the family sought stability in housing and work. After this sad start in Bath and after the Plant family settled down, new arrivals survived their early years.43 The Plant and Roderick families appear to have been migrating for a generation. It must have been a relief to settle in one place with the prospect of stability. Within a decade the French Canadian population of Bath grew, settled in and made themselves at home.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Summary During the Antebellum era, the majority of French Canadian migrations into New England descended from the upper St. Lawrence valley, down the Richelieu River valley and into the Lake Champlain valley of Vermont.

Haying and other farm work could maintain these travelers before they continued into southern New England factory towns like Worcester and Woonsocket.44 The Canada Road was an alternative for a different population of Lower Canadians.

The Beaucerons, on the eve of their first foray to the south, had had contact with and knowledge of Maine for almost a century. Push factors of agricultural crises and a lack of industry stimulated their move from Lower Canada; pull factors of growing industries and available lands in Maine drew them. The transformation of a subsistence agricultural economy into a capitalized economy demanded cash. Work in the United States provided this money – the construction of the Canada Road provided both jobs and a route to other jobs.

This road was a significant factor in itself. No large movement of French Canadians into Maine was noted during the crises of 1815-16, but the road’s construction in 1817 and its upgrading after 1828 helped migrants to escape the subsequent crises southward. This early French-Canadian removal to Maine took place before the construction of large inter-regional railways such as the Grand Trunk after 1853. The lengthy road and sparse conditions in the border region limited the numbers of migrants who could be accommodated on their way to Maine. Death, disability and impoverishment faced their every step. Immigrants did not linger on the road; they quickly traveled to industrial sites and found jobs.

Despite the early need for workers, industrialization in Maine at this time was small scale and local. It could only absorb so many immigrants.

When projects like the new capitol and dam in Augusta were completed, most émigrés returned to Lower Canada. They carried new information about opportunities to the south, occasionally returning as new work permitted. Some of the migrants stayed and found other work. Newcomers sought out their relatives and friends in Maine in subsequent moves.

Once in Maine, the migrants found themselves a significant minority in the larger Yankee world. The pressures to assimilate were strong. Indeed, assimilation was a matter of survival. Small ethnic clusters began to

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grow in Maine cities like Bath, but were not a fortress against the Anglo world – they were a matter of convenience more than necessity, an aid to assimilation rather than a barrier.

Endnotes 1 The Rodrigue family appear to have been cryto-Jewish immigrants to New France and are part of a DNA study though Family Tree DNA, for which Barry Rodrigue is an administrator. Jean Rodrigue, from Lisbon (Portugal) arrived in Québec around 1668. He married Anne LeRoy of Paris. Louis-Philippe Rodrigue, 6 September 1988. Eloi-Gérard 9: 18, 251. Gilbert-Léveillé & others: 220–227.

Garant: 88–89. France Bélanger: 20. Stephen White. Dionne: 526.

2 The Beauce is named after the province of the same name in France and is occasionally considered the most northern county of the Eastern Townships, a rural area between Montréal and the U.S. border that stretches from New York to Maine. Although the Beauce is very distinct from the Townships, it was a large source of their French-Canadian population. The Beauce people have a reputation as the most entrepreneurial people in the Province of Quebec. France Bélanger: 49–72. Ferron & Cliche: 65–80. Little: 2, 17–18. Louis-Philippe Rodrigue, 21 October 1988.

3 The Rodrigue fief of St. Barbe de la Famine lay in the present-day city of St. Georges. Sixteen years later, Jean Rodrigue’s neighboring seigneur lost his fief to an Englishman in Québec City. Their failure is an example of the expansion of commerce under British rule. Garant: 88–89. France Bélanger: 55. R. Cole Harris, The Seigneurial System in Early Canada: 197–198; “Of Poverty & Helplessness in Petite-Nation”: 23–49. Rodrigue, “An Album in the Attic.”

4 A marguillier was one of a three to six person board of directors for a parish, a fairly important position in rural communities. Benedict Arnold, “Arnold’s Account Sheets of the Quebec Expedition” in Roberts: 718. Garant: 109. Ferron & Cliché: 117.

5 Historian Yves Roby and geographer Serge Courville discount the often cited story of emigration being a product of population pressure and its related pressure on the land. They lay the reason for migration on environmental and economic factors. Population pressure would become a factor later in the 19th century.

Courville, Entre Ville et Campagne: 241–256. Courville & Séguin. McCallum: 3–8.

Roby: 14–17. Garant: 109–110. Le Canadien (26 May 1837): 2. France Bélanger: 60.

6 Eloi-Gérard: 251. Gilbert-Léveillé & others: 220–227. Roby: 23.

23

A Castle in the Clouds: 7 From 1765–1790, the population of Maine more than quadrupled, from 22,000 to about 100,000. This was the result of migration caused by over-population, deforestation, soil exhaustion and over-fishing in southern New England. As a result of this human impact, Cape Cod had been turned into a virtual dust bowl. It is ironic that accusations made by historian Jamie Eves about Yankee farming practices are similar to those made by Anglos about habitant agricultural techniques. Eves: 1, 3–4, 55–70, 92.

8 Morgan. Maine, Legislature, Act to Incorporate the Kennebec Steam Navigation Company.

9 About the time of the Revolutionary War, surplus Maine cattle were driven to Massachusetts markets, such as the one at Brighton, outside of Boston. Some cattle had also gone to New Brunswick. After 1828, cattle above Skowhegan began to be driven to Québec City. Graves: 50–52. Provost: 230. I.K. Steele in Halpenny & Hamelin: 315–316. France Bélanger: 61.

10 Rodrigue, “The Canada Road Frontier”; Rodrigue & Boisvert.

11 Goodrich: 19–48. Bruchey: 198–200.

12 Massachusetts, Legislature, Resolve, 12 June 1817: 422. Lewis, Letter to Merrick, 16 July 1817. Austin & others. Jackman Bicentennial Book Committee: 27.

13 In 1831, it was reported that 1394 beef cattle, 249 horses, 956 sheep and 14 tons of fresh fish passed over the Canada Road to Québec City. The State of Maine believed that Québec City had become “an important market.” The agricultural products sold in Lower Canada came from several agricultural districts of Maine and a considerable portion of them were items that had glutted the market in Maine. In short, Lower Canada had become an economic safety valve for Maine’s overproduction. It was estimated that $50,000 came to Maine annually from the Québec City market. Maine, Legislature, Joint Standing Committee on State Roads: 5–6. Locke & others. Abijah Smith: 5.

14 Maine’s need for workers was also part of a national need. The population in the United States increased by 85% between 1840 and 1860. “The approval of unlimited additions to the original population came easily to Americans who were conscious of the youth of their country.” Walkowitz: 6. Handlin: 235. Eves: 149.

Roby: 21.

15 Coffin.

16 French-Canadian names do not appear on early lists of workers on the Canada Road in Maine; Yankee names predominate. However, travelers reported that sixty to seventy men had worked on the Chaudière road in 1829 and that the local Canadians were anxious for completion of the entire road as a carriageway.

Whitney & others: 2. Galbreath. Gilbert-Léveillé & others: 221.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 17 Travel between Lower Canada and Maine could be treacherous. James Jackman first went to work on the Kennebec Road in 1828. However, even an experienced woodsman as he encountered difficulties. On a return trip from Quebec City, in February 1832, he froze his feet on the Height of Land, which put him out of work for six months. Fecteau: 10–14. Violette: 20–21. James Jackman. Hilton.

18 Genealogist Paul Plante analyzed records in Québec in the search for Antoine Plant’s family and discovered a chain of events that contributed to Antoine’s migration to Maine. The adopted son was given the same name as his biological father – Jean Guillaume – and went by the family name of Plante but also occasionally by the family name of Jean. Several of Antoine’s siblings perhaps migrated too, since there is no record of their marriage in Québec and some people with their name appear in Bath: John Plant married Lucy Lassar in 1844 and Mary Plant married Francis Myrick in 1849. Day, Volume 1: 286, 347; Volume 2: 389, 421. Maine, Archives, “Index, Antoine Plant (Civil War); Department of Health & Human Services, Data, Research & Vital Statistics: Death certificate, Anthony Plant. Anthony Plant, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration & Naturalization Service. Paul Plante, E-letter, to Dick Fortin, 15 February 2000; to Barry Rodrigue, Ste. Foy, Québec, 19 February 2000.

19 Roby, 19.

20 Ferron & Cliche: 158. Garant: 109. Chartier: 16–17.

21 Vicero, Immigration of French Canadians to New England. Roby: 13. Lavoie in Weil: 24.

22 The French statement was translated by Barry Rodrigue and reads as follows.

“Fils de bonnes familles de cultivateurs. Cause d’émigration. Dificulté de se procurer des terres à cause de leur haut prix. Refus des seigneurs de concéder.

Exigence des grands propriétaires. Manque de voies et de communications faciles.

Défaut d’instruction et crédulité chez les jeunes gens. Contagion de l’exemple.

Imprévoyance des parents qui ne songent pas à acheter des terres pour leurs enfants, mais morcellent entre eux la ferme qu’ils leur laissent. L’Abeille was a journal published by the Séminaire de Québec. They reviewed the report and thus saved the data for posterity; the burning of the Montreal Parliament by an AngloProtestetant mob in 1849 destroyed the original documents.” L’Abeille.

23 The absence of Jean Rodrigue’s and Agathe Fortin’s children from marriage lists in the Province of Québec indicate that they died, remained single, or emigrated.

Lebel.

24 Much oral tradition handed down through the line of François Rodrigue appears to claim stories about the lineage of Jean Rodrigue. Historian C. Stewart Doty plotted rough demographic movements that demonstrate how particular Franco-American communities in New England often derived population from a

25

A Castle in the Clouds: reciprocal community or region in Canada. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1850, Fairfield: 126. Daily Kennebec Journal, “Meserve Rodrick” (3 June 1914): 11. Doty, The First Franco-Americans: 147.

25 The dam at Augusta was completed in 1837. It took two years to build the 600 foot (183 meter) dam out of wood, cement and granite at a cost of $300,000 – the largest and most costly dam project in the United States to that time. Hawthorne: 3–24. Mellow: 27. Coffin.

26 Hawthorne: 15. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1830, Augusta; 1840, Augusta.

27 Hawthorne: 4–5, 8–10, 15, 20.

28 Hawthorne: 10.

29 Bridge’s property lay on “Andros Hill,” also known as “Cushnoc Heights” and “Sand Hill” – the present-day petit canada of Augusta. Hawthorne: 7–8, 11–12.

Coffin.

30 Hawthorne: 7, 10.

31 Mellow: 88. Hawthorne: 3–4.

32 Roman Catholic Church, Journals of the Bishops, Diocese of Boston, 5 August 1838, 16 December 1840, in Coffin.

33 This name changing was occasionally related to a change in religion. A municipal notation for the marriage of Sophie’s brother, Levi Rodrigue, to Mary Hart in 1844 spells their name “Rodring,” which is the only time I have found the name spelt this way. The spelling of “Rodrick” occurred upriver among Plant’s uncles, persisting for two generations in the area between Augusta and Skowhegan. The spelling of “Roderick” coexisted with and ultimately replaced the other variations, a common practice. Roderick is the anglicized version adopted by more ethnic groups immigrating to the United States than any other name. Robert Chenard, “The French-Canadians of Waterville,” Le Farog Forum, 18 (December-January 1990–1991): 18. Roby: 24–25. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Anthony Plant to Humphry Purinton (24 October 1855), Book 4: 483. “La Survivance, L’américanisation des noms,” in Poteet: 318. City of Bath, Maine: “List of Marriage Banns Published” (3 August 1844): 30; “List of Marriage Returns” (19 August 1844): 266; “Index of Marriage Records” (no date), alpha index. Francis Rodrick.

Meserve Rodrick. Waterville Mail, “Death Notices – Francis Roderick,” (3 May 1878). Thomas Roderick.

34 Reed: 507. Portland Times, “Bath to Celebrate 100th Anniversary this Week” (20 July 1947).

35 Many well known New England families are of French Protestant origin – Jay, Revere, Faneuil, Bowdoin. This migration of French Protestants can be a warning

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Tom Plant and the American Dream about the confusion of French-Canadian names with continental French names, as well as with Anglo-Norman and Channel Island names. Brown, Struble. Charles Allen: 4–6, 18. Daughters of the American Revolution: 20.

36 In Maine, the first Catholic parishes were St. Patrick in Newcastle in 1798 and St. Denis in North Whitefield in 1818. Two preeminent traveling priests were Moïse Fortier of Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, who served Catholics in western Maine in the 1840s, and John Bapst of St. John’s parish in Bangor, Maine, who served eastern and central Maine in the 1850s. This tradition of traveling priests can create a problem of ceremonies fulfilled in one place but reported in the priests’ home parish – as far away as New York or Canada. Diocese of Portland. James Allen: 64, 67.

37 U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1850, Bath; Anthony Plant, U.S. Department of War. Greenough, Jones & Company, Directory of...Bath, Brunswick & Richmond, 1876–1877: 67.

38 Many, if not a majority, of the pre-1848 Irish came to Maine from Canada and the Maritimes. Those who came to Maine from the south of New England and New York came in response to specific construction projects. Most associate Irish immigration with the Great Famine of 1848, but, in some places, larger numbers of Irish came earlier – impelled by limited land, poverty, smaller famines, and epidemics. Over 90% of the Irish in New Brunswick came before 1848. John Deering married Levi Rodring (sic) and Mary Hart in 1844. Deering was a carriage-maker; he is not listed as a minister for any of the denominations in Bath in this era, but he is referred to as a “Minister of the Gospel” in the Bath City Records. Some of the Plant and Rodrigue families converted back to Catholicism a decade after St. Mary’s parish was established in Bath. Bath, “List of Marriage Banns Published;” “List of Marriage Returns; “Index of Marriage Records.” Brown. Mundy: 4, 7–16, 52. Doty, The First Franco-Americans: 154. Toner: ii. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1850, Bath: 110. Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath: 410–433; Bath Genealogy in Two Volumes, n.p. Holt: no page numbers.

39 Factors contributing to the rise of the Know-Nothing movement included collapse of the Whig Party and fragmentation of political direction, economic distress, erosion of the artisan tradition, competition for low-paying industrial jobs, and geo-sectional competition. On a national level, “nativists” organized the American Party and the Star Spangled Banner Party. Ex-president Millard Filmore (1850–1853) ran again for president on the American Party ticket in 1856.

Anti-Catholicism was inflamed by pornographic accounts of escaped nuns from Canada and Protestant preachers like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s father who incited mobs to violence against Catholics. Mundy, 135–162.

27

A Castle in the Clouds: 40 John Hilling (1821–1894) was born in Norwich, England and came to Bath, Maine in 1839. He worked as a house, sign and “fancy” painter. He was also a fire-fighter, which gave him first-hand access to the events in three time-lapse oil paintings of the destruction of the Old South Church. He subsequently painted additional versions of them. This image is a black/white version of one of the two paintings held by the Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine. Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine, Vertical File, Bath Biography: John/Horatio Hilling File; Bath Churches: Old South Church.

41 There was little contemporary documentation of the Know-Nothing riots in Bath. Oliver Moses (1803–1882) was a tinsmith from Scarborough, Maine, who began the Bath Iron Foundry, which evolved into the Bath Iron Works. In other parts of Maine, Father John Bapst was tarred and feathered in 1854 in Ellsworth, and priests were publicly reviled in Portland. In 1855, Bangor elected a KnowNothing mayor and Anson Morrill was elected governor in 1855 with KnowNothing support. The frenzy of externalized hate then peaked. Nativism combined with the two other major issues of the day – temperance and abolition – then coalesced into the new Republican Party. Political authority restored, Nativist hostility was dissipated by the bloodletting of the Civil War. Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath: 206–210. Mundy: 135–162. McMaster: 86–87.

Roman Catholic Church, Diocese of Portland, All Saints Parish. Denise Larson, Bath, Maine, E-letter to Barry Rodrigue, Ste. Foy, Québec, 29 May 1999; 1 June 1999. Bath Independent, “An Old Time Scrape, c 1884. Eastern Times, “A Riot, The Old South Church in Ashes,” 13 July 1854. Barry.

42 It is not known if Sophie Rodrigue’s parents returned to Maine after their three children were born there in the 1820s–1830s. “Agnes Roderick” died in Bath on 29 October 1857 at the age of 68. A John Roderick was listed in Bath in the 1850 census; although the right age, he was married to a different woman. If this is Jean Rodrigue, then he had left Agathe and married into an Irish family. The boarding house where Antoine Plant was listed for the 1850 census showed eighteen residents, three women and fifteen men. Of the men, twelve were mariners and one a clerk. Of the mariners, one came from Ireland, five from Maine, and six were from “France,” including Antoine. This citation could have meant that the census clerk was ignorant enough to assume that French-speakers only came from France, that the enumerator got his information from a misinformed innkeeper, that some of the sailors were actually from France, or that they were having a joke on the census clerk. Bath Daily Tribune, Obituary: Agnes Roderick, 4 November 1857. U. S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1850, Bath: 44, 285, 333.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 43 Lucy Ann died on 6 December 1852. Anthony Jr. died on 27 January 1854. The unnamed girl died on 15 April 1856. Bath, Department of Cemeteries & Parks, alpha index.

44 Roby: 18–19. Vicero, “French-Canadian Settlement in Vermont”: 290–294.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Center detail from a Bird’s Eye View of the City of Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine, 1878, Looking Northwest, J.J. Stoner, Madison, Wisconsin. The detail runs from Canada Hill (top left center) to the Kennebec River. Courtesy of the Sagadahoc History Room, Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine.

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Chapter III – Family Life & Early Work In 1854, John Tucker sold Antoine Plant a parcel of property in Bath for $60. The family would live there for the next 42 years. It was situated atop an undeveloped hill just west of the city center. Antoine mortgaged the land for $45 to a carpenter, a process that allowed their family house to be built on credit. The result was a narrow, two-story, frame structure – an inexpensive but functional style common to growing towns in mid-19th century Maine.1

Plant/Rodrigue residence on Floral Street, Canada Hill, Bath, Maine, circa 1855.

Artist’s rendition by Ann Hirschi, developed from a photo in the Bath Independent, “Birthplace of Thomas G. Plant,” 21 April 1949.

Canada Hill – French Hill At first, the only access to their property was over Centre Street, but, as the hill was settled, other streets developed. The Plant property was listed on “Tucker Road” in 1860, but it became 23 Floral Street by 1892. An interethnic neighborhood, it came to be later called “Canada Hill” and “French

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Hill.” From the 1878 map of Bath, you can see that the initial neighborhood was a detached development at the top of the hill (upper center of the map). As the quartier grew, so did the area encompassed by the hill’s name.

An alternate name of “Skin Hill” came from a nearby slaughterhouse; a brickyard also was close by. In 1869, the new Sagadahoc county courthouse was built on the edge of the hill, facing the waterfront and city center.

According to a resident who was a little girl in Bath in the early 20th century, Canada Hill was considered “not desirable” and “immoral.”2 We catch a glimpse of an unsavory side of their home life through surviving court records. On 16 March 1856, Antoine and Sophie Plant, Levi and Mary Roderick, and Simon Bushee, allegedly committed trespass and assaulted Josephine Roderick. The situation polarized the parties to the extent that they retained lawyers. The judge dismissed the charges against all but Anthony and Sophie Plant, whom he fined just over $7. However, he ordered Josephine Roderick and her husband John to pay over $8 in costs to the defendants. The parties saw the case as important enough to hire attorneys, but the judgment indicates that the judge thought it a nuisance suit.3 Despite such incidents, the migrants appear to have been fortunate in finding a relatively secure niche in Bath.

Others in their extended family more accurately represent the lifestyle of French-Canadian migrants of this era. After 1855, Olivier Rodrigue (Meserve Rodrick) moved his family down the Kennebec River from Fairfield to Bath. The family stayed long enough for a child to be born and then left, around 1860, for the Penobscot River, where their DuRocher relatives worked in the timber industry. Meserve ran a livery stable in Orono, until 1876, when they moved back to the Kennebec. Their children found work in Augusta’s lumber yards, textile mills and shoe factories for the next century. Although wide-ranging, this family’s movements followed an internal logic that combined work opportunities with family connections.4 In Bath, the variety of work helped shape the nature of the ethnic enclave. While neighborhoods did develop for French Canadians, they had an open and mixed arrangement that allowed for social mobility. This freedom to mingle is crucial for an understanding of Tom Plant’s success.

The early French Canadians in New England had opportunities denied to later migrants, who would generally work in a single set of mills and live in a self-contained petit canada. This social mobility in mid-19th century Bath led to a different set of expectations, ones that were wide-open and unlimited.5

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Nonetheless, subtle discrimination is apparent in something as mundane as cartography. In a map from the 1830s, Centre Street is only described as the “Turnpike Road to Brunswic” and its downtown area is defined more by gaps than buildings. On an 1851 map, the lower part of the Old Turnpike is named Centre Street; two brickyards are situated on it, but no cross streets. In a map from 1858, a dotted line leads off Centre Street and seems to be what would become Floral Street. Nine houses appear on this street, but none of the owners are named (such naming was customary).

Even on Centre Street, only Joseph Huse is named. On a map of 1873, Floral Street is named, but no names appear on the houses on the west side of the street. On the east side of the street lies an L-shaped piece of property that contained the Plant’s home, which is labeled as belonging to someone named Brackley.6 Land-holding did not guarantee a niche for posterity in community charts – apparently those whom the cartographers and their informants considered transient and “outsiders” were not identified.

Bath and other growing industrial centers had attracted workers from southern New England, British North America, and Europe. A scan of the 1860 census gives the impression of a cosmopolitan city containing sizable numbers of immigrants and Yankees. Canada Hill was the start of the type of community that would become common in New England mill towns.

The fact that this French-Canadian neighborhood did not coalesce into a full blown petit canada or survive long into the 20th century is an indicator of the assimilation forces effecting early immigrants to Bath. Although the Plant and Roderick families were relatively recent arrivals to Maine, they were not “out-of-place” by mid-century. The Plant family found a new stability in the 1850s. They owned a home and their family grew. Tom Plant was born on 5 January 1859. His father was 46 years old and his mother 36. He joined one brother and one sister.7 However, external forces were developing that would disrupt their family and its community.

Civil War & Reconstruction In 1861, the fall of Fort Sumter signaled the start of the Civil War. Antoine Plant joined the army with many other Maine men. Bonuses are often cited as the motivation for enlistment into the Union Army. While this might have been the case towards the end of the Civil War, when a soldier could get as much as $700, it was not so true at the war’s beginning. Patriotism and adventure were primary reasons for early enlistments, when no one

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A Castle in the Clouds:

7th Maine Infantry encampment, Patterson Park, Baltimore, Maryland, 1861.

Lithograph print by E. Sachse & Company. Courtesy of the Bangor Museum & Center for History, Bangor, Maine.

thought the war would last a long time. However, there was an economic component in Antoine’s case. The Plant family was in financial difficulty.

In 1860, they took out a $100 mortgage and were behind in their property taxes. Although Antoine would have received only a $22 bonus for joining the 1861 volunteer army in Maine, that much cash up front and the promise of regular pay may have seemed attractive – especially in the expectation of a short, bloodless war.8 He was to be surprised, along with the rest of the nation, at the effects of the conflict.

Antoine joined the Union army for three years at the relatively advanced age of 48 years old. He stood 5 foot 5 inches (165 centimeters) tall and had a light sandy complexion, blue eyes, and dark brown hair. By the time of his discharge eighteen months later, he had a dark complexion – one of the many changes wrought by hard fought campaigns in the southern United States. He enlisted in the 1st Maine Light Artillery on 2 December 1861, but was soon listed as “missing” from that regiment. Three weeks later, he enrolled as a private in the 7th Maine Volunteer Regiment of Infantry and was assigned to Company E. Informal movement between regiments was

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common at this time. Many soldiers changed their minds about being in a particular outfit and saw no problem with leaving to join another regiment or even to leave for good. Others wanted to collect a second bounty. This casual attitude to military service became a more serious problem as the war progressed.9 In the spring of 1862, the 7th Maine joined the James River Expedition in its attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia by advancing up the James River from the sea. The Union army failed and withdrew under heavy attack. During this retreat, Antoine was wounded at the Battle of Golding Farm on 29 June 1862. He was “struck by a fragment of shell on the inside of the right thigh, the same passing so near through the leg that it was removed by the surgeon on the opposite side.” Captured by the rebels, Antoine had to “sleep on the ground without shelter or blanket.” Later paroled, he rejoined his regiment in 1863. The wound gave him trouble. His leg healed, but rigidity of the muscles interfered with marching. In May 1863, having been listed unfit for duty for two months, the army discharged him.10 Antoine had spent an active 1½ years under arms before returning to Bath.

The family situation must have been difficult upon Antoine’s return.

Soldiers of the 7th Maine Volunteer Infantry, circa 1862. Courtesy of Scott D. Hann, Mays Landing, New Jersey.

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He immediately applied for an invalid pension. Although periodically increased over the remaining years of his life, it never amounted to more than $12 per month. Antoine justified this pension because his wound incapacitated him from going to sea and forced him to work as a laborer.11 His difficulties were not all due to military service. He was an older worker who had led a hard life and had a young family to support. This was an age with no workers’ compensation. Remedies consisted of assistance from family members, home cures, alcohol and opiates.

Joseph, the oldest son, was a shoemaker by trade and lived with the family in Bath until the Civil War. He appears on a conscription list in 1863 but then disappears. The Plant family continued to grow. A sister and brother followed Tom’s birth – William in 1862 and Agnes in 1865.

Tom and William Plant as children.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

They played with a circle of neighborhood children and family. In the midst of the Civil War, a religious conversion took place. The family had been Roman Catholic in Canada, but some appear to have attended Protestant services in Bath. Four months after William’s birth, both boys were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith, with French and Irish sponsors. This conversion was not unanimous. It took sixteen more years before their father was confirmed at St. Mary’s Church.12 Despite the Plants’ impoverished condition, the children attended common school until age fourteen.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Antoine’s persistent requests for pension increases reflect his family’s need for money. Economic survival was based on a collective family income. Since Tom Plant’s first experience at shoe-making was said to have taken place in Bath, shoe-binding “homework” from local artisan shoe makers or small manufacturers could have been part of the family’s strategy for survival. At this time, the C.C. Small shoe factory operated in Bath on Front Street. This could have been where the Plant family began their shoe work.13 Family poverty had to have had an effect on Tom’s formative years. Perhaps such collective strategies helped to develop his hardworking personality and unrelenting drive to succeed. The family was poor, but this did not hinder the occasional enjoyment of youth.

Young Tom Plant was an avid athlete who excelled at ice-skating, swimming and baseball. “It was always known that whatever game it was, Tom Plant was a hard fellow to beat. He was sandy, determined, perfectly fair and honest.” A boyhood pal reminisced: “I used to watch Tom Plant play ball. He was a catcher, one of the best I ever saw. He caught for Fred Reed, of the famous old Maumees. He sat up behind, or under the bat and picked them off bare-handed and without a mask or shield or mitts or knee guard.” Baseball was not considered a typical French-Canadian sport and therefore is another assimilation marker for the family.14 This was the “Golden Age” of baseball, a highly decentralized game with no major or minor leagues. Town teams, college teams and factory teams all played for a championship. In 1866, two of the 200 teams in the National Association of Ball Players were located in Maine. Tom Plant was well liked and described as having more “ginger” and “grit” than many, and being an “awful digger.” So it seems that his reputation as an aggressive businessman had its origins in his Bath boyhood. It is possible that Tom saw baseball as a way out of the poverty into which he had been born. The sport had provided opportunity for many players and given them money and fame for entrance into commercial enterprise.15 Indeed, Tom eventually used his baseball skill to capitalize his first shoe-making company.

Early Work along the Kennebec When his son turned fourteen, Antoine Plant gave Tom the choice of school or work. Despite a nationwide depression that began with the Panic of 1873, it was a good time to find a job along the lower Kennebec. The workforce had been depleted due to Civil War casualties and emigration to

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the west. Workers were in demand. Tom found employment at a ropewalk and then in a boilershop. He probably worked in G. & J.T. Donnell’s Rope Walk, a large firm making hemp and manila cordage. His second job may have come through neighbors. The Plants lived near the Wakefield family, whose father worked in Moulton’s boilershop by the river, and the Brackley family, whose father was a boilermaker. Such employment would have been a logical choice.16 A maritime region needed lots of cordage and customarily employed children in the early spinning stages of rope-making. It was also a period when ships were converting to steam auxiliary power, so boilerworks were rapidly expanding. These jobs were not those that have been typically associated with Franco-Americans, which indicates the wider latitude of work available to them, before the great mill migrations in the next decade.

Tom’s need to enter the workforce was probably a necessary strategy of survival during the Long Depression of 1873–1879. Such a family work pattern was typical of this era. Although Tom was reported to have made only $2.50 per week, such low wages were pooled by the labor of a whole family, which, together, was a successful strategy for their collective survival.

The Plant children left primary school and took jobs. The negative effects of the depression were demonstrated most clearly by the Plants only recorded absence from Bath, sometime between 1871 and 1876. This probably indicates an attempt to find work in another community, which occurred with others in their family who took jobs in the textile mills of Lewiston.17 Fortunately, just as the depression hit, the ice industry began to flourish on the Kennebec River. Tom went up-river to cut ice and it is probable that he took work with one of the many firms around Richmond. Although the ice industry had begun on the lower Kennebec in the first quarter of the 19th century and lasted until the development of modern refrigeration in the first quarter of the 20th century, the real boom took place in 1870, just as Tom entered the job market.18 Kennebec ice was noted for its high quality and good working conditions.

Cut along the river from Gardiner to Bath, its trade reflected the needs of developing cities and their service industries in the United States. In summer, ice was shipped in square-rigged vessels and barges to cities along the eastern seaboard and as far away as Galveston and New Orleans. Even overseas markets in the West Indies and beyond were cultivated. Entire towns like Iceboro and Kennebec Market grew around this trade. It was a big business and workers came from all over the Northeast for jobs.19

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Ice harvest on the Kennebec River, Maine, circa 1875.

Courtesy of the Richmond Historical Society, Richmond, Maine.

While Tom Plant was employed as an ice-worker, the shoe industry began to mechanize, consolidate and grow in Richmond. Manufacturers from Lynn, Massachusetts were beginning to build “country factories� in northern New England, where they could pay lower wages and reduce costs. Mechanization of many shoe-making steps allowed the use of local residents who might not have had a background in the skilled aspects of the trade. It was also a strike-breaking tactic. The more militant Lynn shops could be closed as country shops took up the slack. By 1874, a Richmond stock company built a brick shoe factory and leased it first to Harvey, Spaulding & Company and then to William F. Morgan & Company. If Tom had begun work binding shoes as a boy in Bath, his familiarity with the trade would have been an inducement to enter a new factory and apprentice as a shoe laster. His first wages in the shoe industry were $2.50 per week.20 Lasting was the step between stitching together the upper leather of a shoe and attaching it to the sole. Tom would shape a stitched piece of leather (an upper) over a wooden mould (a last). The trick was to do it in such a way that the upper stayed in one piece, with no wrinkles, and was centered for attachment to the sole. Although the shoe-making industry was attempting to completely mechanize factories, lasting remained a handcraft. It provided a good opportunity for a young man to enter

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the higher paid, skilled echelons of shoe work. However, the factory in Richmond burned in 1880, and the shoe factory in Bath had closed. This could have been the immediate set of circumstances that set Tom upon the road at age 21 to seek his fortune.21

Shoe factory along the Kennebec River, Maine, circa 1875.

Courtesy of the Richmond Historical Society, Richmond, Maine.

Lynn Shoe Maker In 1880, Tom Plant was listed as a shoemaker living with his family in Bath.

He didn’t stay very long. Family tradition reports that Tom “left with a pack on his back” for Boston – a not uncommon move for boys from Maine. He briefly settled in Lynn to work on shoes for the Keene Brothers Company.

By the time he came of age, Tom had moved from the outposts of industrial capitalism to the center of the shoe-making industry. On 16 December 1880, the Lynn Lasters Union initiated him into their ranks.22 In contrast to the cutters, who tended to favor management, the lasters were more aggressive organizers. They formed the Lasters Protective Union in 1878 from the ashes of the Knights & Daughters of St. Crispin, and,

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

after 1883, cooperated with the Knights of Labor. “Lasters epitomized the continuity in the generations of shoemakers, because they still made shoes by hand, tugging and pulling uppers around a last with needle-nosed pincers.”

Machine operators and hand-workers both struggled to maintain their wages in an increasingly mechanized industry. It was a time of militancy. By 1885, two-thirds of the workers in Lynn were union members.23 After 1880, British and French-Canadian immigrants were the largest ethnic groups in Lynn shoe factories. French-Canadian workers have been stereotyped as less militant than others, but this is a disputed impression.

Labor militancy is another assimilation marker, a sign that immigrants felt secure enough to participate in workers’ movements. Later events in Tom Plant’s life do not demonstrate any culturally based shyness or inability to fight against what he considered injust. Quite the opposite. Tom Plant probably experienced prejudice and competition in Lynn. In 1881, Massachusetts state officials labeled French Canadians as the “Chinese of the East” and a “sordid and low” people.24 Just after Tom’s entry into the union, work-related problems with his eyesight developed. He left Lynn for three years. One account has it that he went to California and spent time with his mother’s sister and her family.

Another version reports that he traveled through Cape Cod selling shoes and accoutrements from a dealer’s wagon. Perhaps he did both. In 1883, he returned to Lynn, where he was joined by his brother. Tom and William lived and worked together as shoemakers for almost two years.25 Two years later, William moved on. He married Margaret Dobbin, the daughter of Scottish immigrants. When their first child was born the next year, they were living in New Bedford. This seaport in south-east Massachusetts had become a textile town after the Civil War and had a large immigrant work force.26 Others of their siblings and cousins in Maine also married into Yankee and British families.

Tom remained in Lynn, working as an edge-trimmer.27 This was one of the best paid and least available positions for machine operators; it also encouraged individualism. He was living in a time of transition for the industry and his own life. In Bath, Tom had been part of a small but accepted French-Canadian community that had quickly adapted itself to Yankee life. Perhaps his encounter with ethnic and economic problems in Lynn helped to drive him from skilled labor to entrepreneurship, as well as to cause him to shelter his French-Canadian origins. The earlier acculturation of his family into New England society probably facilitated

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his decision to join rather than fight Yankee management. In other words, ambition overrode ethnicity.

Throughout this industrial change, Tom kept in touch with his boyhood friends and relatives. His family had more closely integrated itself into the larger community of Bath, where naturalization and adoption served as more assimilation markers. In 1882, the United States granted Antoine Plant citizenship, which was unusual for French Canadians of this era.

Antoine’s citizenship could have been a result of post-war patriotism, to facilitate his application for a pension or part of a drive to organize voting in Bath. In 1889, one of Tom’s uncles and aunts adopted an abandoned Yankee child. While these changes were going on, Tom migrated back and forth between Lynn and Bath – as baseball accounts indicate.28 In the 1880s, baseball developed into a fully professional sport. Tom had probably lost his aspiration of using baseball as a professional entrée and so played amateur games for enjoyment and hometown pride. He was, on at least one occasion, catcher for the Bath Blues. Charles Knight of Wiscasset, a renowned Maine pitcher, reminisced that Tom was “one of the best batters it was my lot to get up against.” The Bath Blues got him to catch for them for a particular game: “[T]he Gardiner Browns were determined to trim us and they combed the upper Kennebec for players and had some good ones.” Knight reported that the Browns never got a man on third and “didn’t Tom Plant catch!”29 Such drive and enthusiasm extended off the playing field and into his career.

Historian Alan Dawley saw the only shoeworkers in this era who could count on “a steady inflow of decent wages” and accumulate any money were “skilled in some difficult operation that made them indispensable to their employers.” By all accounts, Tom Plant was considered a “good” shoeworker.30 His employment with the Keene Brothers could have influenced his attitude towards enterprise. They were known as a progressive and innovative firm. If Plant had been a valued worker in their employment, good treatment and reward could have sharpened his ambition.

By 1885, shoemaking had continued in its attempt to become a fully mechanized industry. Over one-hundred machines were at work between a piece of leather and a foot. Advances had been made with lasting devices, but the industry still could not eliminate the hand-work of lasters and cutters. Nonetheless, it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before the lasters and cutters would enter the situation of their shoemaking

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comrades – mere machine operatives.31 Tom no doubt watched this frenzy to mechanize, saw the decline of wages and prestige in his profession, and decided to move out of his trade and into management.

Shoe Entrepreneur In December 1886, Tom Plant joined the Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company. The firm had been in existence for a year, but needed capital. It was said to be during a strike, when he was out of work. Tom was one of ten investors who each pooled $100, which allowed the company to reorganize its production. He reportedly acquired his share by placing a wager on the baseball team of which he was the captain.32 His first venture into shoe manufacturing, at the age of twenty-five, was a significant step and a matter of being at the right place at the right time.

Success in the “Gilded Age” meant capital acquisition. Manufacturers had to have money to make money. Textile, tanning, steel and other industries demanded so much start-up capital that they prohibited entry to all but the wealthy or well connected. Shoemaking was an exception; it took a relatively small amount to capitalize a shoe factory – to rent space and equipment, buy leather and parts, and hire workers. Costly purchases were avoided; income could begin immediately. Nonetheless, such expenses were still beyond the means of most workers.

This cooperative venture was a means for the partners to make the move from workers to producers. Cooperative companies were, if not common, then at least a recognized way for capitalists and would-be capitalists to advance. Even labor unions engaged in cooperative ventures in Lynn at this time, as with the Globe Co-operative Shoe Company and the Lynn Knights of Labor Co-operative Boot & Shoe Company.33 It is not likely that Plant tried to straddle the ground between organized labor and management. The powerful Knights of Labor had come to Lynn by 1883 and begun to organize among shoeworkers. In November 1886, they organized the Lynn Knights of Labor Co-operative Boot & Shoe Company, a stock-holding company of Knights and their supporters. If Plant had such a worker cooperative outlook, he could have joined with them. He didn’t. By 1890, these cooperative companies had gone out of business, which could reflect the difficulties of plural ownership, an arrangement that Tom would come to avoid.34 The Dun credit listings show only two officers of the Lynn Union Co-

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operative Shoe Company, which indicates that the apocryphal ten investors were silent partners. The firm was reported to be doing a moderate and safe business, and making satisfactory payments, but their general credit had not been fully established. By May 1887, they were reported to be doing well in a safe business and paying their debts promptly. Their annual meeting spoke of progress. Plant’s forte was in sales and in 1887 he was listed for the first time as a salesman rather than a shoeworker.

Understanding his sales ability might well be the key to understanding his success. As an entrepreneur observed: “Any fool can make soap. It takes a clever man to sell it.”35 In the second half of the 19th century, sales representatives had become vital to manufacturers. Their ability to reach wholesalers and retailers could make or break a firm. Harry Nisbet, a shoe salesman active in this era, wrote that they seldom rose above their position, entered management, or made much money. Although Plant certainly proved an exception, he undoubtedly possessed some of the ideals considered necessary to work in shoe sales. “Salesmen should have the ability to study human nature and cultivate a friendly, social acquaintance with desirable customers.”

They needed to learn and adapt, as well as be a “wide-awake, observing, persevering, hard-working, intelligent person … strictly honest and thoroughly reliable.”36 These were all attributes others conceded to Plant.

A difference between Plant and the majority of traveling salespeople, though, lay in the fact that he began his new career as a member of Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company’s management, with a responsibility for sales – he did not follow the typical path of a “drummer.” In 1887, he left the co-op to help organize a new shoe-manufacturing partnership.37 Williams, Plant & Company was capitalized by an input of $1000 from each of its five partners. Plant borrowed half of his investment and took over management of sales. The partners were described as “experienced... steady, honest, and hard-working” and it was said that they did a “small, safe business” in “a medium grade of goods for the New England trade.”

They maintained their factory at 132 Washington Street, which also served as Tom’s “residence,” and demonstrates the mobile nature of his work. By 1889, the firm had $10,000 in the business, not counting machinery, and had survived a great fire that swept through Lynn. The next year, William Plant moved back to Lynn, where he took work as an edge-trimmer, and Tom moved in with his brother’s family.38 There was a hint of internal friction with the new enterprise. In 1890,

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two of the partners left the business, but returned later in the year. The next year, the factory moved to 222 Market Street. Business continued unabated, but it appears that the discontent persisted: “This firm prospered, but Plant characteristically wanted control all to himself.” In June 1891, Tom decided to go into business for himself and offered to buy out his partners at a low price of $22,000. They would not sell, but made a counterproposal.

He had no choice but to accept the low price that he himself made. He used this money to go into business for himself and “promptly began those innovations in methods and use of new materials for which he was noted.”39 Summary The Plant and Roderick families had successfully made the transition from rural Lower Canada to urban Maine. Unlike many of the FrenchCanadian sojourners of this era, they stayed in Maine. Their survival strategies included acculturation, assimilation, and collective family employment. A petit canada began to form in Bath, but not of a type that would be recognizable to the next generation of Québécois arrivals. By the mid-19th century, economic opportunity had created a loose gathering of French-Canadian immigrants, alongside spouses, neighbors, friends and associates from outside their culture.

French-Canadian names, language, jobs and religion had begun to change even before the time of the Civil War. Nonetheless, Canada Hill retained a distinctive identity well into the 20th century. It gave some French-Canadian families such a sense of identity that they even joined a “retrograde” cultural movement back into the Catholic church. When the large French-Canadian mill migrations to other parts of Maine began in the 1880s, borne on railways to mills, they would bypass Bath. Bath had been a transitional industrial center. It moved to the periphery of later FrancoAmerican experience and then all but vanished with its assimilation.

Tom Plant grew up in this mixed milieu of Canada Hill. His life would reflect the ambivalence of his upbringing. He had been acculturated into Yankee society during the rise of industrial capitalism, and his learning had served him well. By 1891, he entered the petite bourgeoisie as a “French American” in hiding. The importance of his assimilation was highlighted by the fact that an official, as well as a public, reaction had begun against recent French-Canadian workers just as he moved to Lynn and taken work in the shoe factories.

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Tom Plant was said to be one of the “few” salesmen to rise to join the ranks of management and among the 10% of Lynn’s shoe workers to become a manufacturer. In seven years, he went from shoe worker to shoe boss by using cooperative and partnership strategies. His capital gradually increased at each step – from a $100 to a $1000 investment and finally a $22,000 sale. Although this was a far cry from his multi-million dollar fortune and a mountain-top mansion, it was also a long way from $2.50 per week as a shoe laster’s apprentice and rooming with his brother in a boarding house.

Endnotes

1 The first mortgage reports buildings on the property not listed at the time of its purchase and the $45 is cited as a “debt.” The mortgage was successfully discharged.

The Sagadahoc Preservation architectural survey reports the house being built around 1900, but this is in error. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Registry of Deeds, John Tucker to Anthony Plant, 24 November 1854, Book 4: 481–482; Anthony Plant to Humphry Purinton, 24 October 1855, Book 4: 482–483; Discharge of Mortgage from Humphry Purinton, 20 January 1860, Book 4: 483. Sagadahoc Preservation: 23 Floral Street. Bath, City Assessor, alpha index: “Huse, Joseph K.” Bath Independent, “Birthplace of Thomas G. Plant.” Barry Rodrigue, Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

2 The first name of the street where the Plant home lay, Tucker Road, indicates that John Tucker, who sold the property, was a developer. In the city directory of 1867–1868, the home was described on Centre Street; this was refined to “Floral, near Centre.” In 1888, the home was given number 25; by 1892, number 23; and it is now 40 Floral Street. Bath resident Ruth McKenzie reported that Canada Hill began just beyond a grocery store at 44 Floral Street. Born about 1900, she was allowed to play with one “desirable” family on Canada Hill, provided she did not go up the hill alone. These experiences took place around 1910, which is not to say the area had such a reputation in the mid-19th century. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry: Ammi Mitchell to Edward Mitchell, 24 June 1862, Book 25: 207; Jane Roderick & others to George King, 9 November 1883, Book 65: 131.

Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath: 196. Langford & Chase: 56.

S.C. Jones & Company: 56. Greenough, Jones & Company, (1876): 67; (1880): 69; (1883–1884): 87; (1887): 91. E. Upton & Son: 69. Bown Thurston Company: 108.

Chace. Struble. Jewell & Mackenzie.

3 In the assault and trespass case, Anthony and Sophie Plant were fined $1 for debt and $6.08 for damage. Josephine Roderick and her husband John paid costs of $8.40 to the other defendants. The details are explained in a writ not yet located.

Maine, Bath Municipal Court.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 4 Olivier Rodrigue took the English name of Meserve Roderick. Sometime prior to 1866, he adopted the given name of “Meserve” and anglicized his family name. The new given name was to perhaps differentiate himself from an uncle and cousin, in Bath, who also were named Levi Roderick, as the nickname of Olivier is “Levi.” His gravestone had the spelling of “Meserve Rodrick.” Meserve Roderick; Isaiah Clair.

Meserve Rodrick.

5 This difference of expectation between the early and later French-Canadian migrations is not clearly reflected in the academic literature. For example, social historians Daniel Walkowitz and Pierre Anctil appear to argue opposing views about assimilation. Walkowitz shows that a dialectic of adaptation and protest, as well as networks of association, speeded assimilation in Troy and Cohoes, New York. Anctil argues that French-Canadian networks of associations retarded assimilation in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Neither study actually contradicts the other. Each community had different external and internal forces that produced different effects on similar networks of association. The development of FrenchCanadian leadership in Troy and Cohoes focused on inter-ethnic, class-based labor organization, while, in Woonsocket, it was contained within the French-Canadian community. Walkowitz: 4, 5, 144. Anctil: 18–19, 23. Bath was more similar in its social relations to Cohoes than Woonsocket.

6 Hammatt. Walling. Chace. Roe & Colby.

7 About 2004, Rie Larson (Marie Jones), one of my students at USM, developed a database of every man, woman and child listed in the 1850 U.S. Census for Bath. She quantified their ethnicity and occupation, linked the data to geography, and mapped it into the city neighborhoods. It was a brilliant research project, made all the more ingenious by being done without the help of a Geographic Information System. The results confirmed my hypothesis about open and flexible neighborhoods. Marie Jones, Research notebook, unpublished, circa 2004. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, Bath, 1860: 60. City of Bath, Birth & Death Records: alpha index.

8 The Plant property was valued at $200; the family owed $1.60 in taxes and $3.25 in costs when it was taken over by the city and sold during the Civil War. They subsequently redeemed it. The tax list contains the names of the Plants’ neighbors who could be relatives and French Canadian. Bowden: 57, 61. Hansen & Brebner: 146. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Anthony Plant to William Randall, 20 January 1860, Book 17: 78; Ammi Mitchell, Bath City Tax Assessor, to Edward Mitchell, 24 June 1862, Book 25: 207–208.

9 Antoine’s name was variously listed in military documents as Antoine, Anthony, and Antonio. This is indicative of sailors’ somewhat ethnically mixed world, as well as approximations by barely literate clerks. The problem of bounty jumpers became more prevalent later in the war with the advent of larger bounties. In this

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A Castle in the Clouds: early stage of the war, record-keeping and military discipline was so lax that many such movements were never resolved until decades after the war, if at all. Anthony Plant, U.S. War Department.

10 The Battle of Golding Farm was also known as the Battle of Garnett’s Farm.

The Maine State Archives does not have documents showing the 7th Maine’s involvement in this battle, which could indicate that Antoine’s unit had become separated in the fighting. Prisoner of War records show that Antoine was captured at James River on 30 June 1862 and confined at Richmond, Virginia on 13 July 1862. He was admitted to a hospital at Savage Station, Virginia with a wound in the leg and, on 3 August 1862, was paroled at City Point, Virginia, appearing on a list of sick and wounded men. Antoine appeared on a muster roll when transferred to Company F on 1 January 1863 and was discharged on 13 May 1863. It appears that he had been on furlough in Maine at this time. Anthony Plant, U.S. War Department. Nickerson. MacDonald.

11 Anthony Plant, U.S. War Department.

12 There is a cryptic reference to Joseph Plant living in Rochester, New Hampshire in 1899 and going by the name of Joseph Rogers (no records have been found for him there). A draft list of 1863 states that he had served in the 12th New Hampshire regiment, but no records have been found concerning that service.

And, there was another Joseph Plant, living in neighboring Androscoggin County, who seems to have been no relation. U.S. War Department, Provost Marshall, Schedule I, Consolidated list of all persons of Class I, subject to do military duty, June 1863: 357. Bath Daily Times, “Obituary – Mrs. Sophia Plant.” William Plant was born on 22 October 1862, Agnes on 16 January 1865. Thomas and William Plant were baptized by Reverend Callaghan of St. Mary’s Church on 11 January 1863. Similarly, one of Levi Roderick and Mary Hart’s children was baptized on 17 December 1865 at the age of eight. Confirmations, in this era, were made by the bishop and so were not frequent in many parishes. Bath, City Clerk, Birth & Death Records. Roman Catholic Church, St. Mary’s Parish.

13 Antoine’s disabilities reduced his ability to support a wife and four children.

Shoe-binding was work that women, children and even disabled adults could perform. In the 1860s, the proliferation of rental shoe machinery encouraged local operations to partially mechanize; local homeworkers even bought sewing machines. Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24. Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 104–106.

J. Chace Jr. & Company 14 French Canadians were known as athletes and sports enthusiasts, particularly for boxing, horse-racing and snow-shoeing in this era. Although protective baseball gear was noted in the 1870s, it was unusual to wear it, or gloves, until the 1890s, even for professional teams. The catcher’s position immediately behind the batter was not customary until after 1879, when a rule change about foul

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Tom Plant and the American Dream balls made positioning further back to no advantage. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Editor, Lewiston Journal, in Wilkin: 1. Humber: 53.

Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Files, Unattributed quotes. Voigt: 85–86. Bath Daily Times, “Some Recollections of Thomas G. Plant.”

15 The present-day form of baseball began to come together in the 1830s. By the 1840s, it developed rules and techniques partially derived from games like cricket and rounders. Before the Civil War, it was largely a gentleman’s sport. Afterwards, workers began to enter it – skill knew no class as the sport became more competitive and commercial. The National Association of Ball Players organized in 1858 and, in 1867, the Eons of Portland became the Maine league champions. Evangelist Billy Sunday and sports equipment merchant Albert Spaulding got their start in life from playing baseball. Voigt: 3–13, 81, 103. Orem: 1–17, 59, 64. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.”

16 The combination of war casualties and migration created a demand for labor similar to that which had drawn the early French-Canadian migrants to Maine in 1820–1860. Ambitious children of this era often chose factory rather than clerical work. New York Times, “T.C. (error) Plant is Dead.” Roe & Colby. Plant to Percy.

Daniel Nelson: 38. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, Bath, 1870: 4.

Bath Daily Times, “Some Recollections of Thomas G. Plant.”

17 Antoine’s family appears in the Bath city directories for 1871–1872 and for 1876–1877, but not for 1874. On a map of 1873, an L-shaped piece of property on Centre and Floral Street, which contained the Plant’s home, was labeled as belonging to a man named Brackley. Members of the family of Sophie Plant’s brother also left Bath at this time and appear in the nearby mill center of Lewiston.

In 1872, Levi Roderick Sr. worked as a molder, as he had done in Bath, while John Roderick worked as a textile operative in the Androscoggin Mill and Levi Jr. worked in the Bates Mill. Levi Sr. and Levi Jr. boarded at Lincoln Street, while John lived in a house on Lisbon Street. Bath Independent, “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” S.C. Jones & Company: 56. Greenough, Jones & Company, 1874: 45; 1876–1877: 67. Roe & Colby. Greenough, Jones & Company, Directory of...

Lewiston & Auburn: 94–95. Bath Daily Times, “Bath Benefactor.”

18 Richmond, Brunswick and Bath were collected together in city directories from 1867 until 1888, reflecting their integration as neighboring industrial centers.

Richmond was second only to Bath as a ship-building center from 1824 to 1885.

The first major shipment of Kennebec ice went downriver in 1826. Insufficient returns discouraged development, although periodic shipments continued, until the 1870s market boom. New York Times, “T.C. (error) Plant is Dead.” Bath Daily Times, “Some Recollections of Thomas G. Plant.” Fairburn: 45. Fleming & others: 50–51. Kingsbury, Deyo: 484a.

19 Below the city of Gardiner, the major Kennebec ice fields averaged 1000 feet

49

A Castle in the Clouds: (305 meters) in width. An acre (half- hectare) of river produced about 1000 tons of marketable ice, which sold for about $2.50 a ton. Some workers boarded with residents and wages reached 75¢ for a ten hour day, or $1.25 if they owned horses.

Everson. Merritt: 168–171. Fleming & others: 50–54.

20 An economy of scale, nationalization of markets and consolidation of transportation routes led to urbanization and de-industrialization of rural areas.

Country factories were a different phenomenon – they were branch factories supported by large firms in rural areas. By 1886, 23 large Lynn shoe manufacturers had opened country factories in New Hampshire and Maine. Although Richmond has a reputation as a ship-building and ice-exporting community, shoe manufacturing employed more than these two industries combined. Babcock, “Economic Development in Portland…”: 20–23. Shoe & Leather Reporter, Supplement, 4 August 1892: 29. Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 239. Jones & Reed.

Robbins. Fleming & others: 95. Bath Daily Times, “Some Recollections of Thomas G. Plant.”

21 Thomson: 220. Green: 428–429. Fleming & others: 95. The C.C. Small boot and shoe factory was only listed in the directory of J. Chace Jr. & Company in 1861 but not in other directories. J. Chace Jr. & Company.

22 Tom Plant is not listed in the 1880 census for Bath, but he appears in the city directory. By the 1870s, more mobile and better skilled shoeworkers from Maine and New Hampshire were gravitating to Lynn, where they joined a “floating population” that comprised 20% of the shoemaking workforce there. Greenough, Jones & Company, Bath, 1880: 69. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, Bath, 1880. Dawley: 136–142, 215. Shoe & Leather Reporter (Supplement), 4 August 1892: 9. Boston Evening Transcript, “Recent Deaths: S.C. Griggs.”

O’Gorman: 296–297. Adams. Lynn Lasters Protective Union.

23 The cutters constituted a small elite of the shoemaking workforce. The problem of mechanizing their trade lay in changing patterns for a wide variety of shoes, which rendered the cutting machines only marginally useful. In Lynn, 10,000 out of 15,000 workers were union members. There was a streak of independence among the lasters that tended to pull them apart. Dawley: 164–165, 189–190.

24 Manufacturers played workers off against each other and, rather than blame management, labor organizers – who were pushing for the ten-hour workday – often blamed French Canadians. Walkowitz demonstrates French-Canadian labor activity in his study of Cohoes and Troy, New York. Historian Alan Dawley has demonstrated that factory capitalism increasingly impoverished shoeworkers in Lynn, rather than providing more security. Walkowitz: 220. Dawley: 138, 154.

Chodos & Hamovitch: 94–99. Massachusetts, Bureau of Statistics of Labor.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 25 The details of Tom Plant’s time in California are unknown. Members of the Rodrigue family had been in and out of California since the 1849 Gold Rush; one of his mother’s sisters lived in California by 1899. Tom and William Plant are listed in the Lynn Directory for the first time in 1883–1884, boarding at 6 School Street.

Sampson, Davenport & Company, The Lynn Directory, 1883: 372. Bath Daily Times, “Obituary, Mrs. Sophia Plant.” Bath Independent, “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” Superintendent & Foreman, “The Thomas G. Plant Company,” 11 January 1911: 46.

26 Margaret Dobbin was born in Lynn in 1864. Yarmouth (Maine). New Hampshire, Carroll County, Probate Court, Petition. W.A. Greenough & Company: 291. Cyr.27 In 1885, Tom Plant lived at 111 Union Street, and, the next year, at 111 Shoe Street.

Historian Alan Dawley reports that many workers moved between shoemaking and non-manual work, as Tom had done. Tom’s new job was in a different craft, so he was no longer eligible for membership in the lasters union. The lasters union dues book shows an initiation date and payment for each year and member, from 1881 to 1887. Tom had been initiated but did not pay subsequent dues; a small black “x” appears next to his name, unlike for other members. Dawley: 164–165.

Sampson, Davenport & Company, Lynn Directory, 1883: 380; 1885: 408. Lynn Lasters Protective Union.

28 Mill migrants from Québec expected to move back to Canada, a process that discouraged naturalization and voting. Many French-Canadians considered themselves to be “American,” since their families had been in North America, including in what was then being called “New England,” from before the arrival of the English. This limited their need to seek naturalization. I sense that Antoine Plant had lead a dissolute life and that he began to reform in the late 1870s by returning to the Catholic Church and obtaining U.S. citizenship. Naturalization drives were often coupled with voting drives, so it would be beneficial to investigate the history of Ward Three in Bath, where the Rodrigue/Plant residence lay. Antoine’s witnesses for naturalization were Francis King and Mary Ranco of Bath, who could have been French Canadian. Levi Roderick and Mary Hart Roderick were the couple that adopted a Yankee child. Sports teams were encouraged to promote moral suasion for the working class in the late 19th century. Baseball teams in growing industrial centers like Lynn reflected the dynamic tensions of industrial capitalism, a by-product of the long-term embedding of firms in communities.

Anthony Plant, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration & Naturalization Service.

Maine, Probate Court. Knight. Poteet: 300–301. Marcus & Segal: 202–206. Voigt: 117. Pronovost & Girard: 205–232.

29 Knight. Commercial clubs of the National League centralized the professional game in this era. The number of mainline teams in Canada and the United States declined from 200 to 50 and, by the 1880s, coalesced into 2 leagues with only 16 clubs and 240 ball players. Voigt: 170.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 30 Skilled workers could be “teamsters,” section hands or sub-contractors. Plant’s skill is evidenced by his move from a country factory to a Lynn factory. Subsequent newspapers reported that he had mastered the shoe business from a mechanic to a manufacturer and was considered a “fast and skilled workman.” These were secondary opinions and part of the “Plant Mythology.” If the story of Plant’s baseball bet is true, then credit has to be given to Plant for investing his winnings rather than squandering them. Although Dawley cites some workers’ abilities to convert property into capital, gambling was not one of his identified methods.

Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24. O’Gorman: 297. Dawley: 169–171.

31 Full shoe-mechanization was a good twenty years away and only then with qualification. The resulting process was very complex, requiring two machines working in tandem to last the tips and sides. This mechanization destroyed the lasters’ trade, and their union finally merged into a shoeworkers industrial union.

Thomson: 221. Green: 429–433.

32 Tom Plant’s work with the Lynn Cooperative Shoe Company is unclear and based on secondary accounts. On 21 December 1886, a certificate of increase of capital for the firm showed a payment of $1000, which could have come from the apocryphal ten investors. December was certainly not baseball season. If the story of Plant’s first capital investment is true, he must have saved it from an earlier game. The company does not appear in the 1886 city directory, which could mean that they were undergoing reorganization. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Directory, 1887: 409. R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts, Volume 28: 521. Superintendent & Foreman, “The Thomas G. Plant Company,” 11 January 1911: 46; “Here & There – Lynn,” 5 January 1897: 15. Daily Evening Item, 1892. O’Gorman: 297. Lynn Item, “Sports Coverage Feature: Greater Lynn Area Has Produced Many Outstanding Athletic Stars,” 30 July 1957. Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued by Wife.” Thompson: 160–161, 163.

33 Alan Dawley computed that only 10% of common shoeworkers, between 1870 and 1880, moved from the factory floor to the boss’ chair. Dawley: 162–163.

Sampson, Murdoch & Company, Lynn Directory, 1888: 566, 719. R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts: Volume 28: 521. Victor Clark: 478.

34 The Knights of Labor promoted cooperative ventures as an alternative or supplement to strikes. Dawley relates how cutters, the “aristocrats of the shoe industry,” tended to become small manufacturers or managers of contract shops for larger manufacturers, because they held more property than other shoeworkers, had knowledge of shop organization, and knew how to take advantage of opportunities. He estimates that 24% of the cutters in Lynn in 1860 became manufacturers by 1870. Such potential for movement had declined by 1880 and their successes were small-scale. Daily Item, “Labor Day Celebrated in Lynn First Time in 1887,” Lynn, 28 August 1937. Kealey & Palmer: 365–369.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Dawley: 163–164. Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 225, 252. R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts: Volume 28: 521.

35 In 1887, Tom Plant was rooming at 21 Sachem Street. Thomas Barratt in Porter & Livesay: 223. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Directory, (1887): 409. R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts: Volume 28: 521.

36 Harry Nisbet was a professional traveling shoe salesman in New York and Pennsylvania for almost thirty years, from 1871 to 1899. He became incapacitated by an accident that wiped out his meager savings and forced him to live in the New York almshouse on Blackwell’s Island. He wrote articles about the shoe industry for two trade journals, the Boot & Shoe Recorder and The Shoe Retailer . These essays were, for the most part, moralistic anecdotes and fawning reportage that were written in order to solicit donations for the author. Nonetheless, a defiant pride and justification for the commercial traveler also comes through in his writing. Nisbet: 27, 64–65, 71–75.

37 In 1888, the Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company is listed in the Lynn city directory for the first time. It continued to receive good credit ratings. They were situated at 66 Willow Street. On 7 November 1888, they bought a small parcel of land on Eastern Avenue. The company continued to expand. By the end of 1888, their property consisted of buildings, as well as an engine, boiler, steam fittings, and shafting. On 5 December 1889, they sold their entire operation to A.P. Legro & Company. Massachusetts, Essex County, Deed Registry, transactions to the Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company – Jeremiah Bulfinch (7 November 1888) Book 1236: 113–114, Frank Jones (7 November 1888) Book 1236: 115–116, John Baldwin (20 November 1888) Book 1238: 434 and (20 November 1888) Book 1330: 277–278, Jeremiah Bulfinch (1 January 1889) Book 1240: 327–328; transactions from the Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company to Stephen Breed (31 December 1888) Book 1240: 328–331, Frederick Spinney, Benjamin Spinney, Arthur Legro (5 December 1889) Book 1265: 457–459. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Business Directory, (1888): 566; Lynn Directory, (1888): 335, 719. Bath Independent, “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts, Volume 28: 521. O’Gorman: 297 Daily Evening Item, 26 November 1889.

38 In the 1888 Lynn city directory, Williams, Plant & Company is listed with Tom Plant shown as a partner. The partners were William Williams, Lewis Clark, R.C. Kellam, and a man named Sewell (Clark). Williams was the son of a shoe manufacturer and managed the business; Clark had been a shoemaker from New Hampshire who took charge of the making-room. Corporate historian Gaynor O’Gorman reported the story that Plant “became the salesman and toured the countryside in horse and wagon selling shoes, gaining experience and regaining his health which had become somewhat impaired.” William Plant and his family lived

53

A Castle in the Clouds: at 45 Valley Avenue. Tom would board with his brother until he left for Boston in 1896–1897. O’Gorman: 297. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Williams, Clark & Company,” A Souvenir of the Tricentennial, 1892: 30–31. Daily Evening Item, 26 November 1889; 1892: 24. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Business Directory, (1888): 566; Lynn Directory, (1888): 430, 549, 567; (1889): 436; (1890): 458; (1891): 482; (1892): 489; (1893): 511; (1894): 508; (1895): 514; (1896): 534. Bath Independent, “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts, Volume 28: 316.

39 O’Gorman wryly commented that Plant’s low asking price of Williams & Clark was a mistake that he was careful to avoid in the future. R.G. Dun & Company, Credit records, Massachusetts: Volume 28: 316. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Directory (1891): 482. O’Gorman: 297. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Thomas G. Plant,” 10 August 1892: 87; “Thomas G. Plant,” Special edition, 1892: 28. Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24. Bath Independent, “Birthplace of Thomas G. Plant.”

Compiled Map, Lynn & Boston Railroad System, 1898. From The Street Railway Journal 14 (9), September 1898, Boston: McGraw Publishing.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

Chapter IV – Rising Captain of Industry Tom Plant wasted no time beginning his new firm in Lynn. From 1891– 1892, he ran the Thomas G. Plant Company out of the five-story Dearborn Block on Liberty Square. This was a new building, and Plant was the first tenant. He implemented new ideas about production from the start. Early factories had begun shoemaking on the bottom floor of a building, moving shoes through a hundred-steps, in a variety of rooms and departments, on different levels, until they were finished on the top floor. Instead, Plant situated his cutting room on the top floor, to take advantage of gravity, skylights, and better ventilation.1 The shoes then moved downwards to the packing and shipping departments at street level.

Journals described the factory as “modern...fitted up with every facility and convenience for shoe manufacturing...well-lighted...clean and airy.”

On the fifth floor, benches surrounded the sides of the great room, where “a large force of cutters” were “kept busily at work.” The stitching-room lay on the fourth floor, the making-room on the third, and the finishing-room on the second. A diverse ethnicity of workers made 2300–3000 pairs of shoes a day. Plant was noted for taking a personal interest in the competency of each worker and the factory’s production. As if it was unusual, journalists mentioned that the company took up most, if not all, of the building.2 In July 1892, Plant took a ten-year lease on property at 685 Washington Street, across the road and around the corner from his factory. The new building was already laid-out for shoe production. It stood five stories high (in addition to a basement), had an elevator, and contained a steamplant for power and heat. It was part of a larger complex that the Breed family rented to others.3 The Breeds had been a large and prosperous shoe-manufacturing family in early Lynn. Evidently, some of these old families had given up production to become landlords and financiers who cooperated with a new generation of manufacturers.

Shoe production had been in rapid transition since the 1850s, when the sewing machine was adapted to leatherwork. Other new machines increased production, as did the reorganization of the work flow, which avoided bottlenecks. Better continental and overseas transportation created larger markets. New marketing and advertising increased sales.

These many new factors could then be creatively juggled to increase profits.

Tom Plant set about to do just that.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Thomas G. Plant Company, Dearborn Block, Lynn, Massachusetts, Daily Evening Item, Souvenir Edition, 1892. Courtesy of the Lynn Historical Society.

In 1893, the Thomas G. Plant Company was incorporated. This act itself was an indicator of growth. Since it served to limit individual liability, incorporation was a marker of success. The firm was said to carry a full line of Tom Plant’s goods – “from Maine to California.” The first to use Vici Kid in women’s shoes, they also pioneered lighter and daintier styles of footwear. Although Plant was reportedly “growing rich” with the rental of shoe-making equipment from the Goodyear and the Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machine Company, he quarreled with them and their

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

president, Sydney Winslow, about royalty payments. Such arguments would erupt later in one of the largest industrial disputes of the new century, but, for now, Plant paid the royalties and contented himself with solidifying his business. He also broke with tradition and began to deal directly with retailers, instead of going through merchant houses and jobbers, who formed a bloc between manufacturers and retail stores.4 Jobbers got their profit by buying shoes as cheaply as possible from small producers and selling them to wholesalers and retailers for as much as possible. Shoe-jobbers had venture capital and could afford to take chances, in the days when industry and marketing were done in many small transactions. This system put the new generation of large manufacturers at a disadvantage, since such indirect sales could not be readily estimated ahead of time. The business began to change in 1871, when two Lynn manufacturers sent their own sales representatives to wholesalers and retailers, which allowed them to generate advance orders and obtain higher profits by cutting out the jobber middlemen. One of these innovators was George Keene, in whose factory Tom Plant first worked in Lynn. This indicates that Tom had learned well from his early work experiences.5 Only 29-years old, William Plant became foreman and superintendent of his brother’s company. He and his wife, Margaret, had four children, and Tom continued to board with them. They began calling him “TG,” likely because, since one of their children was named Thomas Corey, the nickname allowed them to distinguish their son from Thomas Gustave. By 1893, the family bought an estate at 73 High Rock Street. William continued in a managerial capacity for the rest of his career. Having a loyal brother as a trusted lieutenant no doubt allowed Tom some latitude for both leisure and industrial activities, which was another strategy for success. However, the rest of the Plant family saw little of him.6 Oral tradition tells something of Tom’s activities with his family in Maine. Sophie had asked Tom to look after her favorite brother. So, Levi Roderick would go to Massachusetts for money, especially when he needed a team of horses, but he talked badly about his nephew and was cut off from further funds. Family members also sought work from Tom. Joseph Grenier, an Augusta cousin, went to Boston to ask for a job. Tom agreed at first, but, upon reconsideration, sent Joe $10 for his travel expenses and said that he thought it wasn’t a good idea to hire family. This was probably an excuse, since Tom did put other family members to work, even employing cousins from as far away as Ohio.7

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Antoine Plant and Webb Burke, with Sophie Rocrigue Plant in window, Bath Maine, circa 1885. Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

Marriage & Family Tom Plant married Caroline Griggs on 26 June 1895 in Chicago. The groom was 36 and the bride 33 years old. With this marriage, Tom entered a new class of society, since Caroline’s father was considered one of the “most enterprising and successful” publishers in the United States. She was the only daughter of Samuel Griggs and Mary Mason. They came from old Connecticut families. Her grandparents had joined the movement of New Englanders to the trans-Appalachian west in the 1820s. Her father established a bookstore in Hamilton, New York in 1841. Seven years later, he moved his family and business to Chicago, where he published the first book in that city and continued to produce more volumes of “high literary and moral character.” His books had very large sales and leading universities adopted his texts. Although his family had become one of the Chicago elite, Samuel Griggs was a self-made man – like Tom Plant.8 The wedding was “one of the society events of the year.” It took place in the main parlor of the Lexington Hotel, where the Griggs family lived.

The floral decorations were done “on a grand scale.” An organ hidden behind palms in the corridor played the bridal chorus from “Lohengrin” at Caroline’s entrance, and the minister of the First Baptist Church of Chicago married them. After the ceremony, they partook a wedding breakfast in the banquet hall, where twenty electric lamps with different

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

colored shades were placed, which the newspapers noted as unusual. A large central table – decorated with La France roses, buds and maidenhair ferns – seated the bridal party and their immediate family. Fifty to sixty relatives and “intimate” friends sat at smaller tables. Mandolin and harp music serenaded them. There was no mention of Tom’s parents or other of his family. They undoubtedly would have been out of place. The couple sailed aboard the Cunard liner, Campania, for Europe, where they were to honeymoon for five months. They planned to live in Boston, where Plant was said to be a “prominent society man.”9 Although Plant’s liaison with the Griggs and Mason families seems to have served as a “marriage springboard,” we should not over-speculate about its significance. The marriage serves more as an indicator of his success than a cause of it. Tom Plant had delayed marriage and lived with his brother’s family, thus conserving his resources until he had established a successful business that was bringing in almost $1.5 million annually. He was already successful. However, the marriage does demonstrate that Plant had moved out of the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie.10 Class ascendance involved more than wealth.

Although Tom Plant had come from a poor French-Canadian family in Maine, and his formal education had stopped at the eighth grade, he had developed Victorian social graces. Indeed, his assumed fluency in French might have served him well by catering to the elite’s cultural reverence for high French culture. Although he grew up speaking what Parisians would have considered a patois, many Yankee dilettantes would not have given it much thought, and it is likely that he would have hired teachers (as he would for workers and country club members) to make his language acceptable in the salons of Boston. Indeed, Plant had a strong ability and eagerness to learn. Class movement was also a matter of leisure time. Few employers could afford to take a five-month honeymoon in Europe. The marriage facilitated his rise into the social circles of the Yankee moyenne bourgeoisie. He secured additional success through these contacts.

Antoine Plant passed away while the couple was on their honeymoon.

He was 82 years old. Sophie was 72 at the time of her husband’s death. She sold their Bath home the next year and moved in with her daughter, Fannie (Frances) – her only child to remain in Bath. Tom had a house built for his sister and her family on Centre Street, near the old family home. Sophie died four years later.11 When she passed away, in 1899, her son Tom had not even begun to crest his wave of success, but was embroiled in labor problems with his old union back in Lynn.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Worker Accidents & a Strike The new Thomas G. Plant Company had four legal actions against it during its five years in Lynn, all of them worker injury cases. The details of these cases are sketchy because only court summaries were available. One case, however, was appealed all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court and offers more details about factory life.12 James Quigley was 23-years old and, since 1889, had run a dieing-out machine – called a “dinker” and used for cutting soles from heavy leather.

He began work with the Thomas G. Plant Company in July 1891 and became head dinker. The machine was dangerous. Steam pressure forced a heavy steel block onto another block at up to 94 strokes per minute, which cut the leather into soles. The danger was apparent to Plant’s company, and they had installed a tin collar-guard to prevent leather from jamming the works. In March 1894, a scrap of leather fell between the guard and the works, jammed the treadle-release mechanism, and caused the head block to come down on Quigley’s hands when he reached in to take out a sole.

He lost parts of both his hands. Quigley contended that the collar guard had not extended far enough over the opening, which actually made it more dangerous by giving a false sense of security. However, the company maintained that – although Quigley had acted with due care – he knew the machine’s limitations from three years’ labor. In 1894, the Massachusetts Superior Court in Salem awarded Quigley $5000 in damages after a jury trial. The Thomas G. Plant Company asked for a new trial, which was overruled, and then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. In 1896, the Supreme Court agreed that exceptions existed and returned the case to the Superior Court, where the settlement was reduced to $1750.13 This accident, as well as one other, occurred just as Plant went into business on his own and could reflect a factory in transition, where he used other people’s equipment. Such accidents could have been a factor in Plant’s subsequent development of a model factory. He might have considered it less expensive, if not more ethical, to create a safer work environment. Such settlements could also reflect a pro-worker stance by the local government and courts, which could have contributed to Plant’s subsequent decision to move to Boston. The case also demonstrates Plant’s inability to accept defeat and a tenacity to go to much legal expense in order to win. It was cases like these that led to a very active labor movement in the shoe industry.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream

The half decade on either side of the turn into the 20th century was a time of labor militancy and collapse, boom and bust, change and specialization in shoe production throughout the United States. Many of the different shoe worker unions, including the Lynn Lasters Union, had consolidated into and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and their Boot & Shoe Workers Union (BSWU). They engaged in a new militancy and considered the Thomas G. Plant Company a special target, since it was seen to be a “bane” and a “factory of the future” – where workers would turn into mere piece-workers and lose their ability to bargain collectively.14 The company’s total business in 1895 was $1.4 million. That autumn, while Plant was on his honeymoon in Europe, the lasters struck his company and won a settlement. The issues of the strike are not stated in the union records, but the ensuing lockout and boycott took on a life of their own. Upon his return, Plant organized his retaliation. The next year began well – in 1896, the company averaged about 50 cases of shoes per day, increased their business by $400,000, despite the labor dispute, and opened another factory in Ipswich, Massachusetts.15 In July 1896, the company locked out sixty lasters and six McKay machine stitchers. The BSWU reported that “the Plant Co. has declared war upon the union, and it would seem that their purpose is to get revenge for the victory we gained over them last Fall.” The BSWU thought the “contest” would be “long drawn out” and that the “annex” factory in Ipswich was to be used “against the Lynn situation.” The company also brought “outside help” from around the country, but the union had been successful in dealing with the scabs. On 27 July 1896, the Lynn Lasters Union intercepted 28 Italian workers from New York City and Brooklyn, and sent them back, paying their return fare. The union reported that the situation was favorable to those locked out.16 The BSWU then called a strike and boycott against the Thomas G. Plant Company in support of the lasters. Over 250 workers went on strike and received payment from the strike fund of Lynn Joint Council Nº 4. The local council ran a dining facility at the Lasters Hall and fed eighty people a day. They reported that they were “pushing a boycott as a boycott was never pushed before.” The council obtained the names of 300 clients who bought shoes from the company and sent over 3000 form letters with a card advertising the union stamp and its patrons. The council reported that the boycott was beginning to take effect. “Many” buyers sent letters saying they had canceled large orders from the T.G. Plant Company and asked where they could buy “a fine line of Union Stamp goods.”17

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The local council received $400 in donations towards the strike from many of its constituent unions as well as from sister unions, but the treasuries of the council and its unions were depleted by mid-September.

The situation was “fraught with danger to the movement in general in Lynn.” Workers began to drift back to Plant’s factory. The council requested money from the national union, who agreed that such funds were necessary “to go on with the work of pushing the label and organizing the town – incidentally swallowing up what is left of the K of L.”18 The union won a dubious victory. The strike lasted about five months and, in the end, Plant relocated his company to Boston.

This move probably was not as traumatic for Plant as it might seem.

He had already planned to move his residence, and had developed friends and connections in Boston. His shoe production had continually expanded and had probably outgrown the old Lynn factory. It is also likely that his wife expected a major inheritance from her father’s estate and the prospect of such a windfall could have also helped to motivate Plant to relocate to Boston and expand his operations.19 Since the purchase of his Boston property took place a month before Plant locked out the lasters, it seems that he had already begun to develop a runaway shop. The strike probably provided an excuse for a plan already in progress but moved him along faster and further than he had perhaps anticipated. His move to Boston began a new chapter in his life, one which would launch him into the highest echelons of shoe manufacturing, invention, political intrigue, and elegant living.

Foundations of a Boston Factory During his labor problems in Lynn, Tom Plant and his managers searched for a new factory location. They climbed to the top of a water tower in Roxbury, which gave them a view over all of the greater Boston area, and saw an open space on the Jamaica Plain and Roxbury border. In June 1896, Plant bought almost an acre of this land, with buildings, at the corner of Bickford and Centre Streets. Three months later, just as Plant closed his facilities in Ipswich and Lynn, the Lynn Safe Deposit & Trust Company gave him a $50,000 mortgage on the Boston property. Plant’s new site was already set up for production – a building contained a boiler and engine, hot air system, elevators, as well as other machinery and fixtures, such as a main belt and shafting in the center of the building. Plant transferred most

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of the property to his company, which helped him avoid liability in his admittedly risky move, and then took out another $70,000 in mortgages.20 It was appropriate that Plant relocated his company to this part of Boston.

The area had been known as Roxbury, West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. It lay in the southern section of today’s greater Boston, on the mainland side of the neck of the peninsula on which the city center is located. This area had traditionally been a farming district, reservoir and suburban residential area for Boston, but had been undergoing considerable development, and was a mix of ethnicity and class, with an industrial strip that included glue and ventilation manufacturers. Tom Plant fit into the speculative fever of the time and, indeed, his new operation was considered a “reckless financial venture” by conservative critics. The result would cause local wits to refer to Jamaica Plain as “Shoemaker Plain.”21

By January 1897, organization of the new factory was well under way and was expected to hire 1400 hands. The Thomas G. Plant Company brought some of their old employees to Boston and “skirmished around” Lynn for new shoe operatives in early February, but some of the workers returned with reports of poor and expensive board. By March, the company’s payroll included almost 1000 operatives who were daily turning out more than 6000 pairs of shoes. The new establishment was said to be on the way to becoming an “elegant workshop” and the most complete factory ever seen.

Tom Plant was giving it his personal attention. In April, it was reported to be the busiest factory in the country for ladies’ shoes in the $2 to $2.25 range and, by July, it continued to draw workers from the Lynn factories.

While production grew, additions were made to the machinery and new departments were brought on line. Throughout the early part of 1897, Superintendent & Foreman still reported on the Thomas G. Plant Company in the Lynn section of its “Weekly Round-up,” as if to rub it in the union’s face.22 Plant’s mortgages of 1896–1897, as well as his personal money, and probably his wife’s inheritance, funded the factory developments. From the lease of his property to his company, Plant derived an annual income of $14,000 which, together with his other investments and assets, would have been a very comfortable living at the turn of the 20th century.

Between 1897 and 1903, Tom and Caroline Plant lived at the newly built Hotel Belvoir in Kenmore Square in Boston. This “Continental” system of “family hotels” was what we would today call an apartment house – a somewhat new living arrangement that had grown popular in Boston

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during the Civil War and then spread to other cities around the country.

These “French flats” were described as elegant structures, with rents from $400 to $3000 per year, and often included steam heat, an elevator, and the service of a janitor. William Plant took over the job of superintendent of the new company. His family moved into a private home in Jamaica Plain, near the factory, on a residential street that included thirteen private homes and one apartment house.23

Hotel Belvoir, Kenmore Square, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1895.

Charles Damrell, A Half Century of Boston’s Buildings, page 433.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

In 1897, Tom joined the exclusive Algonquin Club, whose membership of wealthy bankers, merchants, lawyers and businessmen used it for social and commercial purposes. Housed in a “palatial” mansion designed by architect

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Stanford White in an Italian Renaissance style, it lay along Commonwealth Avenue near the Boston Public Garden. The Algonquin was known for its elegant interior, outstanding food, works of art, and its namesake – a gaudy, cigar-store sculpture of an American “Indian” that stood 6-feet 7-inches tall (201 centimeters).24 Such contact with commercial leaders assisted Plant’s business and likely served as an incubator for new ideas.

For example, the predominant custom in the 19th century was for shoes to be manufactured and sold according to general styles, such as Oxfords, Bluchers, or button boots – without company or brand names. Arguments had raged through the industry about the benefits of trademarks, company outlets and other individualized approaches to the market. Up to November 1898, Plant had followed “the usual custom of the trade in disposing of its products.” This was about to change.25 At that time, Plant purchased the branch of the Clark-Hutchinson Company in Boston that manufactured “Queen” shoes, including their trademark. He added the word “Quality” to it and began production of his most famous brand – Queen Quality shoes. They were advertised as superior shoes for a reasonable price and were a point of pride to the company. The advertising campaign for this shoe used a famous painting of Queen Louise of Prussia (1776–1810). Thus, Plant broke with tradition and adopted a “new policy and system” of selling a brand name product, which increased name recognition among consumers.26 The Queen Quality shoe was marketed in many styles, such as a black kid and cloth high-topped boot in the “Spanish Opera” shape (Style 542).

The cost was $3 per pair. It had been claimed in the growing “Tom Plant mythology” that his experience as a shoe peddler had inspired his successful shoe design – bringing him into contact with women who let him know that they “desired style and smartness in their shoes as well as durability and economy.”27 However, it appears that his ability as an entrepreneur rather than a designer led him to his most successful shoe.

Plant’s adoption of a popular brand name increased his move into more modern marketing practices. Access to larger capital after the Civil War reduced manufacturers’ dependence on the merchant credit that had been provided by jobbers, while the creation of large retail outlets – such as department stores in urban centers – supplanted the many small shops that had been the domain of jobbers. Once manufacturers reached a sufficiently high production level of identifiable products, they could develop their own sales departments.28

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Production & More Innovations One year after moving to Boston, the Thomas G. Plant Company had assembled $125,000 to $200,000 worth of assets and, in 1899, was allowed a capital increase of $250,000. The firm had not only set up a new factory in a new city, but had also begun new methods of distribution and sales.

By 1900, Plant’s boots and shoes were sold in every state and almost every city of the United States and Canada, as well as overseas, through an “extensive” network of agents and advertisements aimed at retail trade. By eliminating jobbers from the marketing chain, a manufacturer could add $1 profit to each pair of shoes. Such conversion required an increased scale of production to absorb the additional costs of advertising and marketing.

Plant had reached that point. Between 1899 and 1901, the number of dealers for Queen Quality shoes increased by four hundred per year. The shoe became so popular that Plant even had to defend his trademark in court and, in 1901, it won a gold medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.29

Advertisement, Queen Quality Shoes, circa 1905.

Courtesy of Brian Horne and Colburn Shoe Store, Belfast, Maine

An important part of using brand names was the ease of a product’s identification by consumers and it often went with increased publicity.

In late 1898, Plant contracted with Pettingill & Company of Boston to exclusively handle his firm’s magazine and newspaper advertising for a year. Their campaign for 1899 included advertising in Munsey’s Magazine,

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Scribner’s Magazine, the Review of Reviews, the Meadville Chautauquan, McClure’s, the Boston Herald, and the Boston Globe. The ads targeted professional women as well as the general public. The rise of low-cost, mass-circulated magazines in the 1890s contributed significantly to Plant’s access to the American middle class and his increased sales.30 Transportation was vital to increased production. Plant’s factory was on the Boston streetcar system, which benefited workers commuting to their jobs, and it lay close to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, which benefited shipments. From April through September 1901, Plant contracted with the R.S. Brine & Company, whose teamsters brought materials to the factory from the “business part” of Boston and carried finished shoes to distribution points, such as railway stations.

The Thomas G. Plant Company’s shipping room operated with a head shipper, an assistant, and a dozen workers. Their duties were to receive goods brought by express, check waybills, make out receipts, and attend to correspondence, as well as to sell used barrels and cases.31 In October 1899, Plant shortened the work-day from eleven hours (7 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a relaxed “come and go as you please” for lunch) to ten hours (7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with a fixed lunch break). The lasters rebelled against the fact that they were still expected to process 144 pairs of shoes, but in one less hour with no pay increase. They claimed this was a speedup and asked for an extra ¼-cent per pair of shoes. Three or four lasters were fired and the remaining two-hundred walked out. Plant officials claimed that repairs were about to get underway on the building and that they had meant to close the factory anyway. The local newspaper implied that the strike and closure resulted from an absence of labor-management communications and could have been avoided.32 It is not known how it was resolved, but such events certainly made Plant see arbitration as a way to avoid costly shutdowns.

Labor put little effort into maintaining the strike and boycott against the Thomas G. Plant Company. The unions had internal problems of their own and had undergone significant transformation in the eighteen months since the lockout at Plant’s factory in Lynn. By the start of 1898, all unions that had taken part in the strike, except Lynn Lasters Union Nº 32 and Union Nº 80, had disbanded. The Lynn Lasters Union voted to open Plant’s factory to their members, but they were concerned about the impact on other unions in the shoe trades. The Lasters asked the General Executive Board of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union to declare the strike off in all

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departments, which would essentially legitimize the Lasters’ unilateral action. The BSWU complied in early 1898, but they later declared boycotts against Plant’s company and placed it on the American Federation of Labor’s “unfair list” for other reasons. Three incidents brought this about – a fining system (to a limited extent in three departments), reduction of edge-setters’ wages over the winter of 1900–1901, and defeat of another strike.33 Despite union opposition, the Thomas G. Plant Company prospered.

Plant was among those manufacturers who sought to turn population growth to their advantage. Between 1870 and 1910, the national population more than doubled, especially in urban centers. More people in cities meant more workers and consumers in a few concentrated locales. This demographic circumstance allowed manufacturers to expand factories, increase their workforce, and develop new methods of reaching consumers along modern communication and transportation networks.34 All these demographic and commercial factors contributed to Plant’s adoption of modern distribution and sales. He had worked in the first shoe factory to begin retail sales in Lynn and then took charge of sales in his first two managerial jobs. So it should be no surprise that he almost immediately began to move into retail sales with his first independent corporation or that he developed specialty lines of shoes that were well advertised in national journals, sold to large urban stores, such as the May Company, and made complex financial arrangements with banks.

The conversion to retail sales initially resulted in a loss of $600,000. Then a new contract for the Queen Quality shoe, in which the dealers pledged themselves not to handle any other advertised women’s shoe in the $2.00 to $3.50 price range, resulted in a further loss of $165,000 from dealers who refused to sign. Despite these two losses, the company increased revenues of over $1.2 million and posted a $485,000 profit in 1900. Tom Plant was on a roll. Since his move to Boston – from 1896 to 1901 – his company had increased its business by an average of $500,000 per year.35 In the midst of this success, he decided on even more grandiose expansion.

Tom Plant began reorganization of his firm in 1901. He conveyed the rest of his personal property to the Thomas G. Plant Company, reorganized his firm in corporate-friendly New Jersey, proposed to bring in several men of large financial standing, and planned to expand the business. The new members on the board of directors were judicious additions – a bank president, a major leather merchant, a wholesaler, and a lawyer.36 But, before the reorganization took place, he needed to settle his labor problems.

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In 1901, the factory employed 2467 hands. Although Plant again reduced the work-day to eight hours, with ten hours pay, an AFL boycott still existed against the firm. Plant approached the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, and a meeting was set up for 28 September 1901 between the President and Secretary of the BSWU, Tom Plant, and his General Manager. Until that meeting, the BSWU thought their boycott had been a success. They had not been privy to the company profits and had received letters reporting that “several hundred of Plant’s customers” had refused his shoes. The BSWU felt that “a complete victory” was in their grasp and thought that Plant had called the meeting to announce his capitulation, declare a closed shop, and adopt the union stamp.37 Au contraire.

Plant opened his books to the union men and showed them that their boycott had been a total failure. He produced correspondence with his customers who had told the BSWU that they were honoring the boycott.

It transpired that these retailers had continued to buy Plant’s shoes, in some cases resorting to the subterfuge of unlabeled shoes and cartons.

Plant invited the union representatives to name a dealer who had honored the boycott. Almost everyone they named had not only continued to do business with the firm, but had done so with large orders. Plant did produce a list of eleven dealers whom he had lost because of the union’s efforts, but then showed that he had found other dealers who were carrying a larger account in nine of the eleven lost towns. Plant backed up his allegations with ledgers and other documentation, proving his statements to the satisfaction of the union officers.38 Plant said that he had not called them into his office to surrender.

Having shown his strength, he offered conciliation. Planning to enlarge his company’s operations because of recent capital reorganization, Plant wanted an end to the boycott. Although his firm had not been badly hurt, the boycott could injure his future business. He saw organized labor growing in strength and, although he “resented bitterly” the BSWU’s treatment of his company, he approved of their present labor policies. Plant didn’t understand why the union had singled him out – the BSWU had settled with other non-union firms, such as his old partners of Williams & Clark, firms who had fought organized labor and did not recognize it in any way. Why was the union boycotting him? – he was sympathetic to labor and allowed his workers to join any union they wanted.39 Plant showed the union officers how he had addressed the two incidents that had resulted in his being placed on the unfair list in the first place. All

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fines in his factory had been abolished, except for charges for damaged material on shoes. He backed-up his statement with employees’ work records. And not only were the edge-setters’ wages above what they had been before the 1901 strike, the edges were blocked at company expense – despite the fact that Edge Setters Union Nº 229 had ceased operations.40 Plant outlined his plans to the union officers. He planned to build a factory in Lynn of equal size to the one in Boston within nine months. If the boycott were removed, he promised he would open it as a union stamp factory. The union officers asked him to first organize his Boston factory, and Plant replied that “he would not humiliate himself by taking such a sudden flop, his present business did not need the Stamp, and sooner than do that now he would not erect a new factory or would run it as a free shop, but if we would raise the boycott he would make the new factory union, and after our good faith had been shown, and the soreness had gotten worn off a little, he would consider adopting the Stamp in the Roxbury factory.”41 Plant produced a contract that every worker at his factory had to sign.

The BSWU reported that “this agreement steals a little more of our thunder.”

The contract provided for collective bargaining that began between any three workers and – first, the head foreman; second, the superintendent; third, the manager or a company officer. If the issue was not settled, it was referred to the Massachusetts State Board of Arbitration & Conciliation, whose decision would be accepted as “final and binding.” During this process, no strike or lock-out would occur. The agreement did favor management. The seventh and final clause reserved the company’s right to hire and fire anyone, anytime (subject to the agreement about dispute settlements) and, if any strike occurred, the strikers would lose their rights and would never work for the company again.42 The union officers were “completely disgusted” with the results of their boycott. They reported that the BSWU had carried three of the world’s most successful shoe concerns on their unfair list and now doubted the wisdom of it. They saw the futility of trying to distinguish “between one non-union shoe and another,” which allowed shoe manufacturers to “taunt” them “with an absolute failure to whip those whom we single out as the especial objects of our displeasure.” They stated the real issue was about placing a union stamp on shoes. The union officials recommended ending the boycott against the company, since Plant had already met any demands that the union would have made. They figured that by lifting the boycott, the union stood a better chance of getting Plant to use the union

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stamp in both factories, and, so, recommended placing a notice in the their journal headlined – “Plant Boycott Removed.”43 It was quite a meeting and had significance as an early encounter between “business unionism” and “welfare capitalism.”

Superfactory: From Paternalism to Corporate Welfare The reorganization of the Thomas G. Plant Company proceeded as planned.

On 15 April 1902, the company was dissolved. New investors added $2½ million to it, but Plant remained in charge, controlling 60% of the stock. The firm made plans to expand its business, setting-up distributing branches in St. Louis and Chicago.44 The company had met with such success from the Queen Quality shoe

Thomas G. Plant Company, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachussetts, 1901.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

that they created a new brand. In the spring of 1902, they introduced a new trademark and line of shoes. The Dorothy Dodd shoes ranged in price from $2.50 to 3.50 a pair and, by 1903, offered 32 styles for all occasions, ranging from an “ultra fashionable street Oxford” (Style 811, Creole) to an “evening dress boot” (Style 883, Décolletté). The focus was on street-wear shoes for those who walked a lot. Snob-appeal in the ads was coupled with medium-range prices to produce a sense of inexpensive quality. The ads promoted an image of comfort – a steel shank supporting the arch and

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Dorothy Dodd Shoe advertisement. Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company, 1903.

Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachussetts.

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three ounces (85 grams) lighter than an “average” shoe. They deplored the poor quality in the new fashion of “mannish,” low-cut boots for women and emphasized the quality of their product and leather.45 The Thomas G. Plant Company operated both the “Queen Quality Shoe Company” and the “Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company” from their factory.

The brands became so popular that they introduced “Service Books” for consumers with the local distributor’s name and address printed on the back cover, another step in cementing a manufacturer/retailer relationship, as well as mail order forms. These service books were brand name versions of catalogues, as had become so successful with the Sears & Roebuck Company, and reached out to the huge market of rural consumers in North America who had been brought into the marketplace by the postal service.

Plant created a fictional woman named Dorothy Dodd who wrote letters and sponsored writing contests on the reasons that her shoe was superior to others. The ads used romantic drawings of stylish women in many settings, from the ballroom to the golf course, Shakespearean quotes mixed with trade logos and Dorothy Dodd’s purported coat of arms. The company promoted their footwear by coupling fashion to popular science.

Dorothy Dodd said the design of her shoes came not only from “the Courts of Europe and the Smart Set of America,” but also through the efforts of a multi-disciplinary, international research team, as when the ads featured X-ray photographs of a woman’s ankle and foot in a Dorothy Dodd boot.46 One advertising campaign in particular is revealing of Tom Plant. In 1905, the company distributed a 24-page, illustrated booklet entitled, A Call from Cleo. It was written in the style of a feuilleton – romantic serial stories current in journals of the day. It opens with a fancy-dressed man dozing in his apartment after midnight. He has been working on a historical study of women’s shoes. Suddenly, an entourage of women from world history visit, ostensibly to show him their shoes – Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, as well as a group of Oriental and French ladies. The booklet is filled with stereotypes of bickering, vain women and risqué innuendo, and presented itself as a contrast to the “prim” set. While the man, the scene and the French women undoubtedly reflected popular images from 1905, I also have a feeling that they largely catered to Plant’s personal ideas.

The shoe was said to have been developed for his wife and, perhaps, the promotion could well have been developed by Caroline Griggs Plant.47 Ton Plant seems to have advanced men who had experiences similar to his own. For example, the background of William Ratcliffe (1862–1916)

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parallels Tom’s life. The son of an English immigrant, Ratcliffe was raised in Rochester, New York, when his father’s death forced him to leave public school at age fourteen. He took laboring positions until he entered a shoemaking firm and rose to the position of salesman. He excelled at this until 19-years old, but was forced to leave because of bad health. When he returned to the industry in 1891, it was as a traveling salesman for the T.G. Plant Company. Two years later, Plant appointed Ratcliffe vice president and then, about the time of the company’s reorganization in New Jersey, treasurer.48 Plant also sought out and advanced young talent. One of his protégés was Alfred Grover (1879–1920), whose family ran a shoe factory in Lynn.

J.J. Grovers’ Sons excluded Alfred from the firm, so the young man went out on his own in 1897. He and Tom Plant met and found that they had much in common, so Tom hired him and became his mentor. Grover was said to have had “an active part in building up the trade and popularity of the ‘Queen Quality’ and ‘Dorothy Dodd’ lines of footwear for women.”

Tom promoted him to purchasing agent in 1902 and then made him a director of the company in 1906. Grover also became president of the New England Purchasing Agents Association and lectured at Boston University about the “broad science” of corporate purchasing. He would continue to work with Plant after Tom’s retirement.49 Plant attempted to create harmony between workers, management and the larger industrial community. Considered one of the “heavy tax-payers” in Boston’s Wards 22 and 23, he began advertising in the Jamaica Plain News. They reciprocated by carrying more articles about his firm. After the Sturtevant Blower Works burned in 1901, the Plant Company became the largest private employer in that part of Boston, and community relations became even more important. Plant promoted two baseball teams, which were appropriately called the “Queen Qualities” and the “Dorothy Dodds.”

They played other factory teams in games that drew upwards of 500 spectators. The Plant workers joined other local factory employees in the Independent Club, which sponsored dances and events.50 In the spring of 1902, Plant ordered a six-story addition to his factory at a cost of $30,000. All but two floors served as recreational, educational and service facilities for workers – bowling alleys, gymnasium and athletic instructor, sick room, showers and baths, library, restaurant, roof garden, smoking rooms, stage and hall. The facilities were accessed by an elevator.

The women’s library and baths were kept open until 10 p.m.. The factory

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superintendent also arranged cooking classes for women workers at the Lowell School. Concerts and other entertainment were provided at noon and in evenings. All but the meals were free to Plant’s workers.51 Plant also participated in industry-wide activities. In 1908, the New England Shoe & Leather Association named him to a committee to oppose the merger of the Boston & Maine Railroad with the New Haven Railroad.

Their contention was that the merger would create a monopoly situation and increase the cost of transporting raw material to and footwear from New England. The committee lobbied the Massachusetts legislature and governor.52 Plant never built a second factory in Lynn but instead directed all his efforts into his Boston works. Between 1902 and 1909, the company obtained just over 5.6 adjoining acres (2.3 hectares) from William Gaston.

It was a mutually beneficial association. Gaston appears to have been in some financial difficulty, perhaps associated with his political campaigns, which began at this time, and Plant benefited from the legal assistance of Gaston’s law firm and financial institutions. In March 1903, the T.G. Plant company added another six-story annex. The next year, they built two other equally large additions. By 1908, the factory had grown to nearly a quarter mile (half kilometer) in length, covered nine acres (3.6 hectares) of land, and plans were underway for yet another major addition. Its payroll came to over $40,000 a week.53 By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the Thomas G. Plant Company had grown, by all accounts, into an extraordinary operation.

The Factory of the Future In 1910, Tom Plant was “several times a millionaire” and among the leading shoe manufacturers in the world. His company was reputed to be the largest and most successful in the United States. It employed 5500 workers who shepherded leather and fixings through 175 steps to make a pair of shoes. They produced almost six million pairs annually and brought in $8 million of revenue. This enormous production consumed the hides of 3,272,500 kids & goats – 175,000 horses & colts – 560,000 calves – and 341,250 steers.54 This single complex consisted of ten brick factories under one roof configured in the shape of a hollow square. The structure stood six stories high, in addition to a basement, and was 52 feet (16 meters) wide. There were eight rooms to a floor, encompassing thirteen acres (five hectares).

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Entrances led to five fireproof stair-towers (two for women workers), while two other entrances served office staff. Of eleven elevators, five were for workers, and three of those were of “mammoth proportions” to carry as many as 180 women at a time to upper floors. The factory was constructed with gendered notions of the day, so women used separate entrances, elevators, and social facilities.55 As in Lynn, the Boston factory built shoes from the top floor down.

It had good artificial lighting, many windows, and a skylight that gave “soft, clear lighting, necessary to the cutting and fitting departments.”

The workroom walls had light-distributing, enamel-gloss paint. A detached powerhouse contained five self-stoking boilers that ran nine 350-horsepower (261 kilowatt) engines and five generators. The factory consumed 9000 tons (8165 tonnes) of coal a year and was dominated by a radial brick smokestack 150 feet (46 meters) high. It seems that major factory disasters of the era influenced the company design for fire prevention – automatic sprinklers and big fire pumps were supplied from large water reservoirs, tanks, and mains. Great attention was also paid to the building’s fireproof stairways. Heating and ventilation was assisted by 53 large fans. Temperature and humidity was kept constant throughout this vast area by seventy thermometers and numerous hygrometers, which were especially important during the cold season for worker comfort and product quality.56

Letterhead, Thomas G. Plant Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1909.

Courtesy of Historical Collections, Baker Library, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

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In a factory of such huge proportions, communication was essential. A central system consisting of 85 telephones and 8 trunk lines connected all departments and linked them to external telephone lines. A Western Union office was located in the building and used the cable address of “Plant.”

Synchronized time was maintained on 75 electric clocks distributed around the factory. Conveyor belts moved shoes from one production step to the next, and buzzers allowed workers to call for more work or for assistance.

The lasting room was arranged into work teams consisting of a counter boy, puller-over, side laster, and toe laster. Lasts removed anywhere in the factory were quickly returned to their point of origin. Two Lamson carrierlifts at each end of the building moved package-size material to any level, where a messenger delivered it around a floor. Ramps facilitated deliveries by workers on roller-skates. This well organized system eliminated the need for a large staff of messengers. Pneumatic tubes connected to the payroll office allowed workers to be paid simultaneously.57 The factory ran at full capacity fifty weeks a year, even during the Panic of 1907, a feat that was considered a major accomplishment. Management grew cocky: “Amidst all the storm and stress of the panic there stood the Queen Quality business, solid and unmoved as the rock of Gibraltar.” They even published a booklet called, The Business Situation – A Statement of Facts.58 People noted that the company was: “...a striking example of what can be accomplished by the proper combination of intelligent management with capital and skilled labor. When one concern forges ahead while competitors fail or make only ordinary success it is positive evidence of superior ability in management.”59 In addition to its production needs, the factory was also organized to accommodate workers. The sanitary facilities were said to be “as good as the best hotels.” Washrooms were fitted with modern plumbing and tile floors that were kept “scrupulously clean.” A janitorial crew thoroughly cleaned the building at night, preventing unnecessary dust. The company also prohibited chewing tobacco. Fifty-four chilled water fountains were located around the building. Each worker had a locker by their work station and the use of a free checkroom for outer garments and umbrellas.60 A free library and reading room contained the latest magazines and newspapers, as well as 2000 modern books. A large dance hall was

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equipped with a player-piano. The men had a barber shop and a recreation room that held three bowling alleys, six billiard and pool tables, and card tables. Women had a separate recreation room. A large restaurant served several hundred workers who could not go home for lunch, providing “good, wholesome food” at cost. Separate dining rooms catered to visitors, as well as to company superintendents and officers. A “noon day rest park” of 3½ acres (1½ hectares) provided walkways among trees and flower beds, as well as a baseball diamond. It was designed by the celebrated firm of Olmsted Brothers. A railed promenade covered two-thirds of the massive roof – half for men and half for women, each with separate access stairs.

A 100 foot (30 meter) tower gave them a spectacular view of Boston, its suburbs, and the Blue Hills of Milton.61

Olmsted designed park at the Thomas G. Plant Company, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1909. Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

The Queen Quality Athletic Association sponsored events for workers, such as Saturday afternoon concerts, and published a weekly journal, Queen Quality Topics, which provided factory news to over 2000 readers. The company also participated in a training program that paid trainees while they learned to be shoe operatives. It was said to have been established to help workers out of the situation from which Tom Plant had climbed.62

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A physician was kept on duty during work hours for employees, at no cost, and saw up to fifty patients a day. “Rest rooms” were maintained near the medical office. Nurses were available at no charge for ill workers who could not afford one. An eye doctor was also on duty, and spectacles were provided at cost, it being felt that a majority of nervous disorders resulted from eye problems. The company set up an employee benefit association that provided sick and death benefits, and held over $5000 in reserve.63 Between 1899 and 1912, the Thomas G. Plant Company was a defendant in twenty worker-injury cases in Boston. Twelve were machine-related accidents. One each involved a burst boiler, a collapsing wall, an elevator, a fence, and a horse, while three were unspecified. Three of the accidents resulted in death. Seven involved injuries to appendages: three of amputated fingers, one an injured foot, and nine unspecified. The court awards varied from $100 to $175 for lighter injuries, $300 to $650 for serious accidents and complete amputations, and $1300 to $1850 for deaths. Almost half the cases were for $1 or uncited awards, under agreement – seemingly a method for masking out-of-court settlements. Only two cases were decided for the company. Seven cases involved minors.64 In all, twenty worker injury cases in eleven years was not a bad average in this era of primitive worker safety.

It could also indicate that the firm settled many more cases out-of-court and was a reason for their health, sickness and death benefits.

The company set up a savings bank that paid 6% to 10% interest on worker accounts. Wages were high, in addition to the benefits. Lasters made $15 to $20 per week doing piecework. Plant also used an incentive system for business promotion. Only those with an “active concern” in company affairs were allowed to be stockholders – this meant management.

It was accomplished by a unique system not requiring a cash outlay by the investor. Department heads were allocated stock, for which they paid by promissory notes, which were in turn paid through earnings on their stock. On top of this profit-sharing, bonuses were also given to salesmen, superintendents and department-head stockholders.65 Nonetheless, Plant’s endowments were not benevolent gifts. There was local suspicion of industrial work in general, if not of the Thomas G. Plant Company itself. The priest of the church and school across the street from the factory discouraged parish “girls” from seeking jobs there. Such suspicion might have contributed to Plant’s institution of worker benefits.

There were trade-offs. Although Plant granted an eight-hour workday with no pay cut, he did restrict talking and leaving machines or the work bench

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– errand boys fetched drinking water and shoe supplies. A later source also reported that employees wore uniforms color coded to their department in order to help foremen discourage “slacking-off.”66 Plant’s system seemed to work well – both to aid the vigilance of his straw bosses and for the workers to address grievances. When new machines slowed production in 1910, a committee of toe-lasters formed and their department superintendent took them up the chain of command to the factory superintendent. They got satisfaction in one day. Some employees worked a long time with Plant – five to ten years or more, which seems to indicate a reasonably content workforce. Plant himself placed high value on such longevity. As in Lynn, the company employed a variety of ethnicities – Armenians, Jews, Germans, French Canadians and Yankees – which reflected the mixed factory neighborhood.67 Tom Plant was said to get along well with labor in Boston, but that he would not have a closed union shop. He took “extraordinary steps” to make workers comfortable: “He ran what men who know what they are talking about describe as ‘the cleanest shoe factory ever seen, before or since;’ he had the reputation of being willing to meet with his workers and pay them fairly and rewarding his key men generously.”68

Assessment of Plant’s Innovations The question arises as to why Tom Plant chose to create such innovative facilities. Was he motivated by guilt over having been a worker who now found himself exploiting other workers? Was he motivated by responsibility towards or sympathy with his employees? Or was it just a shrewd business strategy to maintain labor peace? All of these factors probably played some role, but the fact is that his innovations were part of a new industrial era, in which they were adopted to enhance work flow and foster labor relations.

Indeed, many of his innovations, such as the telephone system, were no longer curiosities – they were considered necessary.69 The demand for low-cost, mass-produced goods led to larger factories, more efficient technology, an increased workforce, and modern marketing.

These changes in turn brought about new ways of integrating production and distribution. Daniel Nelson’s history of factory transition between 1880 and 1920 identifies three phases of modern factories – technological, managerial, and personnel. Such changes tended to first take place in large, new factories. In other words, an economy of scale demanded new systems.

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The builders of these factories adopted innovations because they saw them as cost-effective. Nelson looked at many kinds of factories; his observations apply to shoe factories in general and Plant’s in particular.70 The Thomas G. Plant Company was exceptional. The shoe industry had an average of only 89 workers per factory in 1900 and was still in the midst of the transition from hand production to machine production. In respect to Nelson’s study, I estimate that Plant’s firm would have been among the one hundred largest factories of any type in the United States – ranked by numbers of workers – between 1900 and 1910. Indeed, it would have been one of the few shoe factories included on such a list. The sheer size of his operation demanded a change in production.71 Plant’s technological applications were a mix of modern, status quo, and conservative methods. A building often dictated workflow, and Plant gave major attention to maximizing the flow of production. Electricity was the greatest innovation. It freed manufacturers from belts and pulleys, saved space, and increased safety. It hadn’t happened all at once. Electricity had been used in the 1880s for lighting, but it took until the turn of the 20th century for it to be widely used to drive machinery. His Lynn facility ran on steam, but his Boston factory ran on electricity. Nonetheless, Plant did not always accept the most advanced technology. He used brick and timber, when iron and concrete were better load-bearing materials that allowed for more windows and better fire-retardation. Although Nelson considered a hollow square and multi-floor design – such as Plant’s factory – a conservative design, this arrangement could merely reflect urban property constraints, as demonstrated by Plant’s numerous real estate transactions.72 While many manufacturers introduced electricity as well as modern systems of heating and ventilation by 1900, they varied widely in their facilities for workers. Many employers considered injuries to be a worker’s fault and so they provided few benefits, such as infirmaries. However, some employers saw workers welfare an incentive that increased production by reducing turnover, encouraging loyalty, and promoting cooperation. The concept of “welfare capitalism” was developed by national organizations, manufacturers, and engineers. It also sought to satisfy the needs of increasing numbers of women in the workplace. Plant was in the forefront of this movement, and, historian Daniel Nelson lists the company as one of the forty leaders in factory welfare, between 1905 and 1915, in the United States.73

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Management was in transition in this era too – moving from a foremanrun workforce to an integrated personnel approach. Under the old system, workers found ways to reduce production despite “driving” by straw bosses.

So, in the 1890s, engineers advocated for a bonus system to provide positive reinforcement and eliminate slowdowns. These worker-based efforts failed, but they were transformed into incentive plans for management, such as stock-ownership, which Plant established for department heads. Plant also participated in an industrial school program for educating workers to new machinery systems. This was less a matter of his good will as part of a need for competent workers in the face of rapidly changing technology.74 Several industrial system-approaches developed after 1880, as a result of larger factories and more complex machinery. These new ways of thinking led to additional reforms in factory design and administration, as well as to the rise of industrial engineers, such as Frederick Taylor, who developed models for “systematic” and “scientific” management. The descriptions of Plant’s factory fit so closely with the ideals of scientific management that it would appear that he must have contracted with one of these consulting firms to assist his operations.75 Few firms introduced welfare capitalism and scientific management before the First World War. Plant was an exception. But not all of his innovations resulted from personal genius. Massachusetts led the nation in factory safety standards in 1877, and insurance companies insisted on fire prevention reform, such as “slow-burning” building materials and sprinkler systems. State enforcement and lower insurance premiums made it pay for manufacturers to adopt these innovations.76 Such state and insurance inducements probably encouraged Plant to modernize when he built his new factory in Boston.

Newspapers reported how business, products and employees all received Plant’s personal attention. Although this demonstrates his compulsive need to control situations, it also fits with the progressive socio-economic and religious ideals of an employer at this time. In small industrial settings, such as Plant’s factory in Lynn, employers were in close daily proximity with their workers and could hardly avoid taking the welfare of their employees seriously. Benefits accruing to employers from such involvement included defused labor conflict, improved morale, and greater loyalty.77 Such involvement was more than cynical opportunism to co-opt workers and placate social critics; it was considered a personal responsibility.

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A factory was seen to model itself after a family. The owner was a fatherfigure, hence the concept of “paternalism.” His personal wealth contributed to workplace and community institutions, since he saw workers’ wellbeing as a moral duty and a demonstration of power, as much as good business. Often infused with religious doctrine, the architecture, facilities and services mirrored an owner’s concerns. Such activities included raised wages, profit-sharing, medical and relief programs, housing, and recreation programs. This progressive paternalism was a shift away from laissez-faire capitalism, yet it was also distinct from the Antebellum paternalism of southern plantations and northern mills.78 It did not last.

As industry grew in size and complexity, as in Plant’s factory in Boston, owners became separated from workers through a hierarchy of straw bosses, managers, superintendents, officers, and directors. Concerns about markets and banks distracted owners’ attention, leading to a focus on productivity, forecasting, and profit. Instead of building worker or community institutions, as paternalists had done, large corporate managers tended to give money to external institutions and saw such endowment as practical workforce management instead of moral or a personal expression.

From this insulated structure arose “corporate” or “civic” welfare.79 As the United States and its manufactories grew, the role of the employer changed. This transition is reflected in Tom Plant’s life. As he guided his firm from a one-building factory to a sprawling industrial complex, the personal time he could devote to paternal involvement was reduced.

His efforts to make his workers more content assumed the trappings of corporate welfare. However, this was more of a function of time constraints than a change in personality. After his retirement from shoe manufacturing, he returned to paternalist endowments and expressions.

Personal Lives It is more difficult to reconstruct a person’s private life, as opposed to their business dealings. For one thing, fewer records remain. It appears that Tom Plant mixed business associates and personal friends. Indeed, this appears to be a hallmark of his life. For example, Fred Emery, his patent counsel, shared a number of interests with Tom, from nature to civic involvement, and seems to have been a major influence in Tom’s life.80 Tom was a member of the Boston Athletic Association from 1905 to 1912, which reflected his life-long interest in fitness. In 1905–1906, he also

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Hotel Somerset, advertisement. Clark’s Boston Blue Book, 1904.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

joined the Boston Art Club, of which Emery was a member. He may have joined out of friendship with Emery and a desire to improve his social skills, as well as it reflecting his appreciation of art. Tom rejoined the Algonquin Club in 1904 and continued his membership until 1922. This private mens’ club was an important part of business life and a measure of Plant’s growing social status. It is significant, however, that he was not a member of The Country Club in Brookline, which had become an exclusive preserve of he Yankee elite.81 After his company reorganization, Tom became more flamboyant in his personal life. In 1904, he and Caroline moved to the Hotel Somerset, a stately eight-story commercial hotel that had opened on Commonwealth Avenue in 1899 and advertised itself as “one of the World’s most luxurious Hostelries” in “the fashionable centre of the famous Back Bay.” They remained there for the rest of their time in Boston. William Plant’s family also experienced social mobility. They moved to the up-scale suburban neighborhood of Newton, just outside of Boston, in 1903, where they raised their four children.82 By this time, the Plants could afford to take time away from work and leave their firm in the hands of managers. In 1902, Tom and Caroline were noted as first-class passengers aboard the Cunard steamship, Ivernia, bound from Boston to Liverpool.83 Although known as an “intermediate” ship for immigrants, it catered to a mixed clientele, depending on its direction of

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passage. Most immigrants came to America, while tourists booked passage to Europe. The Ivernia was distinguished for having the largest smokestack ever fitted to a ship (60 feet/18 meters high).

In 1904, William and Margaret purchased a summer home in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, which they named “Tanglewood.” Tom and Caroline, for their part, took a “beautiful” summer place in Dublin, New Hampshire. Dublin had grown into a popular summer colony for urban professionals and catered to national elites like President William Taft and writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). By 1909, Tom and Caroline rented the Hanks estate in West Manchester, New Hampshire for the summer.84 The couple were said to be “fond of outdoor life” and would go on hunting trips together. On one of these expeditions to New Brunswick, they captured a bear cub, which they kept at their country estate in West Manchester. It reportedly followed Caroline around town like a puppy, until it got away one day and a local hunter shot it in the New Hampshire woods.85 In August 1905, Caroline took twenty-five poor children from Boston’s North End and West End for an outing to the North Shore. They went by train to Gloucester and then by barge to Manchester-by-the-Sea, where they had a meal. Caroline was noted as one of the Boston women active in “settlement work.”86 A goal of the Settlement Movement was to assist

Postcard image of the R.M.S. Ivernia in Boston Harbor, 1902, with U.S.S. Olympia, a battle cruiser just returned to active service.

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families achieve upward mobility and merge into improved and more interdependent communities. This effort was in keeping with Caroline and Tom’s personal backgrounds and progressive ideals.

Caroline became “a conspicuous figure” at the Chestnut Hill horse shows, where she has ridden and driven her own thoroughbreds. Tom was getting older and more affluent. His interest in baseball gave way to an interest in horses, which he began to exhibit at shows and fairs in Brookline, Brockton, and elsewhere. He was said to own “a fine string of horses,” and won four prizes, including two Vanderbilt Cups, at the 1905 Spring Horse Show in Asheville, North Carolina. His favorite riding horse was a Tennessee Walker named “Sunshine,” immortalized in a painting by Alexander Pope, a Boston artist. In 1907, Tom and Caroline were noticed at the International Horse Show in London, England. Such a pastime went with the times and reflected upward mobility. Tom grew up in the “Golden Age” of the horse and began to acquire money and power at a time when horses were identified as a social attribute, representing the breeding of the owner as much as the horse.87 In 1909, it was reported that Tom bought his “daughter” and her husband 1150-acres (465 hectares) of improved farmland near Wichita, Kansas. The media said that it would be converted into a “country home” and “ranch property” with “commodious buildings” and “thousands of trees.” It was said that the young woman had been ill and the couple would live in the city of Wichita, using the ranch as a country retreat. Her husband was “a wealthy planter in Texas.” Since Tom and Caroline did not have children, this perhaps refers to a niece, a common error in the media. No details of this transaction have been found, but if it transpired it indicates further equestrian interest.88 It is only logical that Plant became a horse fancier, which provided him with further business contacts. He became seriously involved with horses in Boston. This entangled him in conflict when the Charles River Speedway Club Stable took over the Gentlemen’s Driving Club of Boston in 1905, in what appears to have been a coercive power play.89 Such conflicts were becoming a hallmark of both Plant’s personal life and his career. He had the need to dominate situations when others disagreed with him – gathering allies and using his money to dictate terms to others.

Despite his drive to be number one, his insistence on recognition and respect, and his sensitivity to slights and insults, Plant also had pride in his origins and a conscious informality. It was common knowledge that

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Sunshine, Tom Plant’s favorite horse, circa 1900. Alexander Pope. Courtesy of the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

he came from a French-Canadian family in Maine and that he preferred to be called “Tom.” 90 He possessed a basic humility in that he never forgot his heritage and did not feel the need to hide them. Indeed, he seemed to quietly revel in the celebration of the mythology of his rags to riches story.

Summary Tom Plant’s career was one of nearly continuous ascendance.91 Although it was possible to start a shoe manufacturing company on a “shoe string” in the late 19th century, it was not a simple task. One had to have access to liquid assets for rental of a building and machines, leather, and workers.

Plant used a variety of strategies to acquire this capital: a baseball wager, a cooperative venture and partnership, loans, frugal and cooperative living arrangements, a delayed marriage into the elite Yankee world, society associations, mortgages, the machinery lease system, worker incentives,

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new products and marketing systems, brand names, being at the right place at the right time, and knowing how to take advantage of these situations.

These all helped to steadily lever him upwards in capital acquisition. Once established in Boston, he transferred his assets into the fixed capital of an extraordinary factory.

Tom Plant was not so much a man ahead of his time as merely being in its forefront. Although the uniqueness of his factory innovations have been exaggerated, it must be kept in mind that what he did accomplish was significant. His life must merely be brought down to a human level. This is not an easy task. A mythology began to attach itself to his life around 1892, when he became an independent manufacturer. As his success increased, stories began to cling to him. This was, in part, a product of the journals and newspapers of the day – a literary tradition of the “American Hero” who succeeds single-handedly against all odds. Tom Plant was increasingly used to represent the ideals of a rising group of worker-manufacturers who had successfully made the transition into management. His life took on the role of a folk hero for popular culture, initially begun and then fueled by the press. Plant served as a vicarious wish-fulfillment for society, cutting across class and ethnic lines to become a folk hero for generic American culture.92 Ethnicity was still important. Although many executives in the lateth 19 century shoe industry appear to have come from relatively humble origins, they were still often of Yankee or English background – or highly assimilated, like Tom Plant. This common bond of ethnicity was a key to success that many workers did not have. Genius, alone, did not work.

Perhaps the only expression of Tom’s ethnicity occurred in his limited family contact. It seems that an increasingly busy schedule caused his visits to Bath to decrease. His siblings and cousins also married outside of their ethnic group, an event not so common among later Franco-Americans.

Thus, even his family contact, as time passed, was a poly-cultural experience and a dilution of his North American French heritage.

Plant’s marriage into a Protestant family contributed to his success – not because of some mystical attribute of Protestant society, but because it gave him contacts in the dominant society with which to further his career – just as club membership, hotel life and vacations in elite resorts also helped him. Plant’s friends and associates seem to have come from this milieu.

Influential individuals, like William Gaston, and their financial institutions, were a key to his success. His ambition combined with his ability as an

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entrepreneur to lead him to the top of both industry and society, which meant carving out a niche for himself in the Yankee moyenne bourgeoisie.

This further removed him from his French-Canadian origins.

Tom Plant’s drive was so overwhelming and time-consuming that he did not have the opportunity to indulge any potential interests in his FrenchCanadian heritage, except possibly as it might lightly touch on business or social life. Indeed, we have to ask ourselves why someone in his position and with his ambitions would want to celebrate his origins. His heritage was not something he hid, but it was also not something with which he had much contact, and it would not have profited him to cherish it.

Endnotes 1 The description of Plant’s factory mistakenly identifies it as being in the Ashcroft Building, rather than in the Dearborn Block. This error seems to have resulted from both buildings being part of the Ashcroft estate. The factory was situated at 463–467 Union Street. Plant’s workflow was noted in the press of the time as an innovation. Nonetheless, a top to bottom arrangement was fairly common by the later 19th century and, while most of the cutters might have been situated on the top floor, those operating heavy sole-leather cutting machines were normally located on the first floor, because of the machinery’s great weight. Boot & Shoe Recorder, special edition, “Thomas G. Plant,” 1892: 28. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Directory, (1892): 489. Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24. Zahavi: 82.

Shephard.

2 Union dues-collectors seem to have been, by their names, of English, Irish, Scottish and French origins. Accounts of the early years of Plant’s factory appear in the following articles. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Thomas G. Plant,” 10 August 1892: 87; special edition, “Thomas G. Plant,” 1892: 28. Shoe & Leather Reporter, Supplement, “The Shoe Production of Lynn,” 4 August 1892: 29. Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24; “Shoe Manufacturers Ruled Supreme in Lynn in 1892,” 18 December 1927. Superintendent & Foreman, “Here & There – Lynn,” 5 January 1897: 15. McDermott: 267. Lynn Lasters Protective Union, Dues Collectors Accounts, Volume 11, 1 January 1896: 4–5; 1 April 1896: 8–9; 1 July 1896: 16–17; 1 October 1896: 28–29.

3 The owners reserved a right-of-way and access to the power and heating apparatus in the cellar, as well as the right to divert heat and power to other tenants. The lease began on 1 July 1892 for $9,658 per year. Massachusetts, Essex County, Deed Registry, Albert Breed & others to Thomas Plant, 1 September 1892, Book 1399: 304–306. Faler: 3–4.

4 The Thomas G. Plant Company directors were Thomas Plant (president), Robert

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A Castle in the Clouds: Ramsdell (treasurer), William Ratcliffe, William Plant, and William McGaffee. It was capitalized with $150,000 – 1500 shares at a par value of $100 each. “Vici” kid was the trademark name for the first of the chrome-tanned, glazed (shiny) kid leathers made in the United States. They were generally the better grades of kid leather and were dressed with a mixture of soap and oil. The name came into use about 1885 in Philadelphia. Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Corporations Division, Certificate of Organization, 26 June 1893. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Thomas G. Plant,” 10 August 1892: 87; Special edition, “Thomas G. Plant,” 1892: 28. Daily Evening Item, 1892: 24; “Shoe Manufacturers Ruled Supreme.” Daniels.

O’Gorman: 101, 298–299. Frederick Allen: 92.

5 Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 148–149.

6 William Plant was an edge-trimmer in 1892 but a foreman in 1893–1894 and a superintendent from 1895. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Lynn Directory, (1893): 511; (1895): 514. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, 1900: 453. Massachusetts, Essex County, Deed Registry, Dunbar to Plant, 1893. Brooks.

Kenneth Plant, 23 December 2013.

7 Joseph Grenier was the husband of Nellie Roderick, a daughter of Levi Rodrigue (Meserve Roderick) in Augusta. The refusal of a job by Tom Plant was perhaps a good thing for him, as Joseph subsequently became the Maine State printer.

Arnold Hill’s story of the horses confused two men named Levi Roderick. The one in Bath was Sophie’s brother, while the one in Augusta was her cousin. This confusion illustrates the reason for the Augusta cousin changing his name to Meserve. Hills. Wilson.

8 Tom Plant and Caroline Griggs could have met during Plant’s expansion into nationwide shoe distribution in Chicago or through Caroline Griggs’ aunt, who lived in Boston. Caroline had been born on 22 April 1862 in Chicago. Samuel Griggs and his only daughter appeared in the 1893 Chicago Blue Book. The wedding took place on a Wednesday morning at 11:30. Chicago Directory Company: 534. State of Florida. Howard Williams. Chicago Tribune, “S.C. Griggs Dies From Paralysis.”

Boston Evening Transcript, “Recent Deaths: S.C. Griggs.”

9 Since Tom and Caroline would both be recognized for their great love of plants, their wedding decor could be an indication of an early common interest.

Plant’s love of organ music would later manifest itself when he had an organ similarly hidden in his New Hampshire mansion. Plant would be buried by a Congregationalist, so this marriage by a Baptist minister into an assumedly Baptist family could demonstrate his transition from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism or a non-denominational status. It is possible that Plant developed his European distribution system and contacts during his extended honeymoon. My impression is that he often combined business with pleasure. The major Chicago newspapers covered the wedding over several days; the summary is a composite from them.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Chicago Interocean, 26 June 1895; 27 June 1895; 30 June 1895. Chicago Daily News 26 June 1895. Chicago Times-Herald, 23 June 1895; 27 June 1895; 30 June 1895. Chicago Evening Post, 22 June 1895; 26 June 1895. Chicago Record, 27 June 1895. Chicago Tribune, 23 June 1895; 27 June 1895; 30 June 1895. Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife.”

10 Boot & Shoe Workers Union.

11 Antoine Plant died on 30 June 1895 from “idiopathic peritonitis.” Hazel Adams, a grand-daughter of Frances Plant Kingsbury, reported that Tom bought his sister’s family a house on Centre Street. In 1902, William Plant conveyed the land to Frances; it appears to have been obtained from the Tuckers. Sophie died at age 76, on 5 May 1899, from “senile degeneration of brain.” Maine, Department of Health & Human Services; Data, Research & Vital Statistics, Death certificates: Anthony Plant, Sophia Plant. Maine. Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Heirs of Anthony Plant to Joseph Varney, 5 May 1896, Book 86: 489–490; William Plant to Frances Kingsbury & Deyo, 28 July 1902, Book 104: 247–249; Martha Tucker to William Plant, 2 June 1893, Book 83: 437. Shaw: 112, 136. Adams.

12 When I researched this material around 1992, state workers had boxed up the old court records in Salem to take to the state archives. However, the state fell on hard financial times and had not been able to finish the project. The records sat in the cellar of the Essex County Court House and, since the boxes were unmarked, the court clerk said that he was unable to retrieve the case files. So, the only information to which I had access were docket book summaries. In the first case, Annie Pherson of Lynn was caught in machinery on 13 April 1892 and “greatly injured.” A person named Phelan received a $1500 settlement – one of the largest any worker received in an injury case from Plant. Another case was dismissed without costs since neither party appeared. Two of the summaries are missing.

Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Essex County, Superior Court: Pherson v. Plant, Nº 8084, July 1892, Volume 196: 394; T.G. Plant Company v. Lasters Protective Union, Volume 208: 389; John Sheehan & others v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 4654, December 1901, Volume 214: 329.

13 The Bresnahan dinker was the standard machine in Lynn factories for cutting shoe soles. No one could cite the occurrence of a similar accident. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Essex County, Superior Court, Quigley v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 1658, June 1894, Volume 204: 314; Supreme Court, James Quigley v. the T.G. Plant Company, 165 Mass 368, 43 NE 205, 7 November 1895–29 February 1896.

14 Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 267–319; interview.

15 Ipswich was known for its lace-making industry, as well as textile and hosiery mills. Shoe factories began there in the late 19th century, generally small firms of ten to fifteen people doing piecework and employing mostly French-Canadian and Irish workers. The local historical society could find no reference to Plant’s

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A Castle in the Clouds: factory. Boot & Shoe Workers Union. Superintendent & Foreman, “Here & There – Lynn,” 5 January 1897. McDermott: 267. Coulombe. Tobin.

16 The BSWU thought it would be a long conflict because the Lasting Machine Company was believed to be supporting the T.G. Plant Company. Other documents report the existence of factories that would perform work for companies being struck – scab contract shops. For example, during an 1897 lasters strike, the Boston Company did lasting for Williams, Clark & Company. A later letter goes into more detail about the timetable of the strike. On 25 July 1896, the T.G. Plant Company locked out 23 lasters and 6 sole fasteners. This was followed by a strike at the Ipswich factory where 33 more lasters walked out, along with many more workers. All the other branches of the Lynn factory then struck. BSWU correspondence contains copies of letters from Lynn Local Joint Council Nº 4 and assumedly represents the opinion of its constituent members, including the lasters. Superintendent & Foreman, “Weekly Round-up – Lynn,” 30 March 1897.

Boot & Shoe Workers Union. Tobin. Eaton, Letter to Bannister.

17 The local council obtained a list of local unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in order to extend their strike action. A union stamp, or “bug,” was a logo appearing on products, declaring them made by union workers and indicating a closed shop. Boot & Shoe Workers Union. Eaton, Letter to Bannister.

18 The financing of the strike created a delicate labor situation in which the local council would have had to make an large assessment on the member unions who had not contributed in order to pay back those that had. It appears that the Knights of Labor and the Boot & Shoe Workers Union competed during strikes. On 22 September 1896, Charles Cormier was expelled from the union for scabbing at Plant’s factory. Boot & Shoe Workers Union. Eaton, Letter to Bannister. Lynn Lasters Union, Membership Book, Volume 18: Charles Cormier, 160. Superintendent & Foreman, “Weekly Round-up – Lynn,” 30 March 1897.

19 Plant was not alone in labor-management conflicts, as other shoe manufacturers also moved their facilities to avoid such confrontations. It was said that Fred Carter, Secretary of Lynn Lasters Union Nº 32, had done “more than any other one individual to drive Thos. G. Plant out of Lynn.” Shortly after Plant’s move to Boston, Lynn shoe manufacturers were said to be organizing a free-shop movement. It seems that some had tried to blame Carter personally for the situation, while others said he was only doing his job. Carter was in Lynn from 1896–1899. The health of Plant’s father-in-law had begun to fail at this time and, in 1896, he had sold his publishing company. Samuel Griggs died on 5 April 1897. His only living relatives were his wife, daughter, and sister. It is likely that Caroline Griggs Plant received a significant inheritance from her father’s estate, and it could explain the sizable divorce settlement she obtained fifteen years later – if she had invested it in Plant’s new factory. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.”

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Lynn Lasters Union, Ledger, Volume 4, 1891–1897: 123, 143, 163; Dues Book, 1880–1887. O’Gorman: 298. Superintendent & Foreman, “Weekly Round-up – Lynn,” 30 March 1897. Shephard. Boston Evening Transcript, “Recent Deaths: S.C. Griggs.” Chicago Tribune, “S. C. Griggs Dies from Paralysis.”

20 It appears that the man who sold Plant the property was his agent, as the property had been conveyed only a month before. The first mortgages were successfully discharged. A number of the deeds, over the years, were registered late, which allowed a transaction to be hidden from public record. By the end of 1896, Plant leased two-thirds of his Boston land and the six-story brick factory to his company. The ten year lease began on 31 December 1896 and brought him $1166.67 per month in rent. In early 1897, Plant took a second set of mortgages – one for $55,000 on the leased property and another for $15,000 on the other third of his real estate. In return, he was to pay $10,000 in two years and $45,000 in three years at 6% annual interest. After the mortgage was reduced by two partial payments of $10,000 each, the mortgages were extended by eighteen months.

Plant was to pay $15,000 in four months at 6% annual interest. The mortgages were successfully discharged on 15 July 1901, which demonstrates the success of his company and its reorganization. Jamaica Plain News, “A Prosperous Local Industry.” Massachusetts, Suffolk County, Deed Registry, John McCarthy to Thomas Plant, 8 June 1896, Book 2365: 43–44; George von L. Meyer & others to John McCarthy, 15 May 1896, Book 2365: 42–43; Thomas Plant to Lynn Safe Deposit & Trust Company, 3 September 1896, Book 2385: 394–397; Thomas Plant to Lynn Safe Deposit & Trust Company, 13 January 1897, Book 2413: 525; Indenture: Thomas Plant to T.G. Plant Company, 14 January 1897, Book 2413: 497–504; Extension: Thomas Plant with J. Albert Walker, 15 January 1900, Book 2659: 213–215. Lamprey.

21 Established in the 17th century, Roxbury had become a city in 1846. West Roxbury broke away to become a separate town in 1851, but was annexed as a district of the City of Boston in 1874. Jamaica Plain lay in West Roxbury. These changes are reflected in references to Plant’s facility being in Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and Boston. I have standardized it to Boston. The lands in this neighborhood were concentrated in the hands of a few people, while mortgages were used to develop them, and rights of way were important – all indications of an area under development. Ellis: 436. McDermott: 267. Von Hoffman, Local Attachments, Interview. Marx, “An Unforgettable Night…”: 1–2.

22 In early 1897, the Boston factory of the T.G. Plant Company advertised for cutters, hand lasters (as well as lasters on Boston and Consolidated machines), sole layers, closers-on, top stitchers and vampers. Mrs. Luther Cheney had been overseer of the Ipswich stitching room in the summer of 1896. After the Ipswich factory closed, she first worked in Lynn and then moved into a similar position with Plant’s factory in Boston. In July 1897, the T.G. Plant Company had eighty

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A Castle in the Clouds: cutters at work. The production is not certain. In April 1897, the company was reported to be producing 5100 pairs of shoes daily. In July 1897, George Kenny had been working in the factory of G.W. Herrick & Company of Lynn, but he left in order to work as a shipper for the T.G. Plant Company. The Goodyear department was being set up in March and, by the fall of 1897, was expected to produce 1500 pairs of Goodyear welts per day. A trade journal reported that the move represented a loss to Lynn of between $10,000 to $12,000 per week in payroll alone. Superintendent & Foreman, “Here & There – Lynn”: 5 January 1897, 2 February 1897, 9 February 1897, 23 March 1897, 13 July 1897.

23 The Hotel Belvoir was at 636 Beacon Street. Of the eight other family names in 1897, six appear to be English, one Jewish, and one Norwegian. William Plant’s family lived at 6 Burr Street and possessed enough affluence to afford to hire a servant; they did not sell their home in Lynn until 1906. Sampson, Murdock & Company, (1897): 1258; (1898): 1272; (1899): 1281; (1900): 1326; (1901): 1346; (1902): 1367; (1903): 1467. Edward Clark, (1897): 35, 159; (1898): 41, 168, 268; (1899): 41, 175; (1900): 41, 178. Ada Clark, (1901): 41, 181; (1902): 42, 187; (1903): 42, 192. Ellis: 16. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau: Massachusetts, Soundex, 1900. Massachusetts, Essex County, Deed Registry, William Plant to Emily Sweetser, 17 May 1906, Book 1827: 9–10.

24 Plant left the club in 1898 for unknown reasons and would not rejoin it for another six years. Edward Clark, 1897: 439. Freely: 255. Ellis: 7. Johnson.

25 Nisbet: 60–63. U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Northern District of Ohio.

26 The Clark-Hutchinson Company had been organized in Boston to sell ladies shoes in May 1892. They adopted the word “Queen” as a trademark, stamping it upon their shoes. Salesman Harry Nisbet devoted an entire chapter in his book to “this fad or craze” of “making a specialty shoe,” seeing it as a method at which few manufacturers succeeded. Plant beat the odds. Historians Porter and Livesay saw such efforts as a step in manufacturers’ control of their own sales campaigns. The use of Queen Louise in the advertising campaign illustrates Plant’s personel involvement and growing ideal of Napoleon – Queen Louise famously interceded with Napoleon on behalf of Prussia after their defeat in 1807. Her image was popular at this time; she was a celebrated beauty whose picture appeared in advertisements ranging from oranges to cigars. The picture that the T.G. Plant Company adopted was Gustav Richter’s painting from 1879. U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Northern Ohio; Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit: 375–376. Porter & Livesay: 224–225.

Victor Clark: 477. T.G. Plant Company, The Famous Queen Quality Shoe. Nisbet.

27 The Queen Quality shoes were manufactured in full and half sizes, from sizes one to eight. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Thomas G. Plant,” 10 August 1892: 87. T.G. Plant Company, The Famous Queen Quality Shoe: 21.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 28 Porter & Livesay: 2–5, 10–12, 223–224.

29 The number of Queen Quality dealers were 1747 in 1899 and 2584 in 1901. The Plant Company had totally converted to direct sales to wholesalers and retail stores on terms of 1% in fifteen days and the net in thirty days. The May Company was a Cleveland department store that obtained shoes similar to but cheaper than Plant’s Queen Quality shoes. They stamped the shoes with a cursive “Queen” or “Queen Quality” trademark similar to Plant’s brand, as well as with their company name and place of business. The May Company then advertised in the city press that they were the only store in Cleveland to carry the Thomas Plant Company’s $3 brand, at a time when Plant was about to expand his Queen Quality sales into Cleveland.

At the end of 1899, Plant filed an injunction against the May Company’s use of his trademark. After a year in court, the May Company was enjoined from using the words “Queen” on ladies’ shoes. Problems continued. The May Company grew in size and was acting as a wholesaler to other cities. In May 1905, they bought a stock of slightly weather-cracked Queen Quality shoes from the Plant Company that had been relabeled as the lower grade of Ladies’ Favorite shoes. The next month, the May Mercantile Company sold the shoes to retailers in St. Louis, Missouri, and advertised the shoes in the St. Louis Globe, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and other newspapers as Queen Quality shoes – despite the objections of the Plant Company. Plant sued both the wholesaler and the retailers, winning both suits.

The one-dollar profit from manufacturer to retailer shoe sales was based on figures from 1911. Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Corporations Division, Certificate of Organization. U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Northern Ohio; Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit; Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division; Thomas Plant v. Hamburger & others. BSWU. T.G. Plant Company, The Famous Queen Quality Shoe: Stock Goods, Pricing list. Jamaica Plain News, Queen Quality Advertisement, 9 November 1901.

30 The adoption of brand names and national advertising campaigns gave more power to producers and consumers by eliminating middlemen. Plant’s advertising contract with Pettingill & Company lasted little more than a year, as he became dissatisfied with the ad quality. The companies agreed on the magazines in which to advertise, while Plant agreed to an annual contract – not to exceed $50,000 paid in monthly installments to Pettingill & Company. In this arrangement, Pettingill was billed for the ads by the magazines, and was to receive 10% above net costs, service and handling. Before this agreement, Pettingill & Company had served Plant in the same capacity, but not in such an exclusive and formalized fashion.

On 1 February 1899, Plant repudiated their memorandum of agreement and, a month later, the magazine and newspaper contracts were transferred to the Plant Company. Porter & Livesay: 223–225. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Suffolk County, Superior Court, Pettingill & Company v. Thomas G. Plant Company, Nº 9422, June 1901 to November 1906.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 31 Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, R.S. Brine Transportation Company v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 11143 / R.S. Brine & Company v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 11144, October 1901–March 1906.

32 The lasters made 1 to 1¼ cents per pair of shoes. Jamaica Plain News, “Contention in Plant’s Shoe Factory.”

33 Union 80 owed eight months back taxes and needed work for their membership from whom they could take in dues with which to pay taxes (these “taxes” most likely referred to dues that Union 80 owed to its federation). Union 80 could not call off the strike like the lasters’ union had done and needed action from their national board. Fred Carter, Secretary of the Lynn Lasters Union, requested that such board action be kept private for the benefit of the workers “…and not for the benefit of Plant and the shoe dealers who want to handle his product – (of course if such request is made no one will tell) Ha! Ha!” The Lynn Lasters were a volatile and independent union. Their cessation of hostilities was recognition of a fait accompli, but it was unusual because they were usually opposed to such deals that the AFL and BSWU were often willing to cut with employers to get them to become contract shops. By 1931, the Lynn Lasters had joined and withdrawn from the BSWU three times. Boot & Shoe Workers Union, Letter. Eaton, Letter to Carter. Fred Carter, Letter to Eaton. Blewett, Interview. Mara: 1225.

34 While most of the United States’ population growth came from natural increase, almost 20 million were immigrants and 71% of them settled in the northeastern states, where over 65% of the population lived in cities. U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States, Volume 1: 8. Bruchey: 261.

Eldridge & Thomas: 3–5. Porter & Livesay: 2–5, 10–12, 223–224.

35 Heather May, an associate in Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, possesses an 1898 Mercantile Agency book for the Boston area that awards the T.G. Plant Company a “C+1” rating, which was said to demonstrate strength. However, comparison to other shoe companies shows that it is not a very high rating of fiscal strength. Few such credit reports exist for this era. After the parent Dun Company converted to typewriters, about 1890, the company ceased maintaining manuscript ledgers and resorted to disposable, loose-leaf pages. This 1898 listing is therefore rare.

The T.G. Plant Company’s increase in capital at this time could represent an inheritance from the estate of Tom Plant’s father-in-law that had been invested in the company, one that needed authorization to create more shares. Conversion to direct sales gave the company better protection from union boycotts, since there were more dealers than jobbers for the union to organize. Since their move from Lynn to Boston, the firm’s profits increased. In 1895, their last uninterrupted year in Lynn, the company had $1.4 million of business. In 1900, the business increased to almost $3.5 million and was expected to exceed $4 million in 1901.

May. Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Corporations Division, File Card for T.G. Plant Company. BSWU. Jamaica Plain News, “Thomas G. Plant Co.”

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 36 The T.G. Plant Company was incorporated in New Jersey on 18 July 1901, its last annual report was filed on 17 January 1916, and the company was voided on 21 January 1936. The additions to the board of directors were John McNair (president of Lynn National Bank), Junius Beebe (from Lucius Beebe & Sons, a “large and progressive” leather house), George Hutchinson (treasurer of ClarkHutchinson Company, which had sold Plant the “Queen” shoe brand), and George Carr (a lawyer). Massachusetts, Suffolk County, Deed Registry:Thomas Plant to the T.G Plant Company, 22 July 1901, Book 2770: 154–155. BSWU. New Jersey, Department of State, Corporate Status Report. Jamaica Plain News, “Thomas G. Plant Co.” 37 The change in hours benefited a fifth of Plant’s employees – about 500 workers.

U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Northern Ohio, Eastern Division; Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. BSWU. 38 BSWU. 39 BSWU. 40 BSWU. 41 BSWU. 42 Massachusetts had a longer tradition than most states in labor-management arbitration. Daniel Nelson: 125. The BSWU noted that the T.G. Plant Company’s labor agreement provided for collective action by departments through committees, but that it forced workers to prove individual offenses while seeming to be well treated. “To the outside world this form of arbitration differs from ours only that the workers in our factories must belong to our Union, and there are plenty of people in this country with whom this must is none too popular.” BSWU. 43 This meeting seemed to be a watershed in organizing tactics for the BSWU, which now began to advocate for more cooperation with management and focus on getting factories to carry the union stamp. It was also at this time that they were expanding into Canada. BSWU. Babcock, Gompers in Canada: 48–49; “Samuel Gompers & the French-Canadian Worker.” Massachusetts, Labor Department, Labor Bulletin: 220.

44 In 1909, the St. Louis branch of the T.G. Plant Company was at 1324 Washington Avenue and the Chicago branch was at 211–213 Madison Street. The directors of the reformed T.G. Plant Company were Thomas Plant, William Ratcliffe, William Plant, William McGaffee, John Brock, and William Mitchell. Brock and Mitchell were two additions to the board, with Mitchell serving as secretary. Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Corporations Division, File Card for T.G. Plant Company; Judicial Branch, Supreme Court, Harry Smith v. Thomas Plant: 94; Suffolk County, Deed Registry, Copy of Minutes of Directors Meeting, 3 May 1904, Book 2967: 380. O’Gorman: 298. Ratcliffe.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 45 The Dorothy Dodd shoe sizes ran from 1–9 and from AA to EE. T.G. Plant Company, Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company, Service Book (1903); Service Book (1905–1906); “The Real Reason Why Is Told Inside!”

46 T.G. Plant Company, Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company, Service Book (1903); Service Book (1905–1906); “The Real Reason Why Is Told Inside!”

47 T.G. Plant Company, Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company, A Call From Cleo.

48 Ratcliffe was a Republican and an Episcopalian. He enjoyed reading, theater and golf, and married a banker’s daughter in 1894. It is interesting that he made it into the pages of an elite biographical compilation, but not Plant. In a similar vein, William McGaffee began with the Plant Company as a workman in about 1891. He rose to department foreman and then superintendent, becoming president when Ratcliffe died. James T. White & Company, Volume 40: 571. Jamaica Plain News, “W.L. Ratcliffe (sic) New Head of T.G. Plant Co.,” 7 January 1911. Superintendent & Foreman, “The Thomas G. Plant Company.” William McGaffe, in U.S. Justice Department, United States v. United Shoe Machinery Company & others, 1917– 1918, District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri, Volume 24: 10427–10428.

49 Alfred Grover’s father emigrated from Nova Scotia to Maine in 1851 and soon entered the shoe industry in Lynn, where he opened a factory in 1865 – the firm became J.J. Grover’s Sons. Family discord developed after his father died, so Alfred did not join the family business. Alfred and Tom Plant both had families that had emigrated from Canada to New England, they were both temperate men who valued physical fitness, they enjoyed horseback riding, and both belonged to the Algonquin Club. Tom took Alfred under his wing and trained him. Alfred gave his daughter Virginia (1909–1970) the middle name of Plant. Elliot Grover.

Manchester Leader. Boot & Shoe Recorder, “Half a Century in Business,” 11 December 1915: 31–32.

50 The T.G. Plant Company paid $2822.93 in Boston property taxes in 1901 and $3606.31 in 1902. Jamaica Plain News, “The Heavy Taxpayers,” 12 January 1901, 18 January 1902; “Jamaica Plain,” 10 May 1902, 16 August 1902, 11 October 1902, 29 August 1903.

51 Jamaica Plain News, “Building Applications,” 22 March 1902; “An Additional Building,” 19 April 1902. Bath Daily Times, “Two Bath Boys.”

52 The New England Shoe & Leather Association had been incorporated in Boston in 1871. One of their documents listed twenty-seven shoe and leather organizations in the eastern United States in the first decade of the 20th century.

Their affiliates were in Cincinnati, St, Louis, Philadelphia, Newark, Rochester, Boston, Brockton, Chicago, New York City and Lynchburg, in addition to regional associations, and included manufacturers of boots, shoes, finders, leather, saddles,

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Tom Plant and the American Dream soles, belts, as well as associations for sales and management. Charles Jones and Charles Hall were named with Tom Plant to the NES&LA committee opposing the railway company merger. National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association. New England Shoe & Leather Association. Houghton.

53 The Gastons were an old Huguenot family. William Gaston’s father had been governor of Massachusetts in 1875, and family members were founders of the International Trust Company, with which Tom Plant would become involved.

They were also connected to the Institution for Savings in Roxbury. Parts of William Gaston’s lands appear to have been mortgaged in 1890, and he continued to mortgage his lands through 1903, especially to the Institution for Savings in Roxbury. Gaston then began to recover his mortgaged properties and sell them to the T.G. Plant Company. Because the deeds were signed prior to Gaston’s redemption of mortgages on his properties, it is likely that Plant was furnishing Gaston with the means to gain some profit from his lands rather than indicating Gaston’s financial recovery. The 1903 factory renovation cost $30,000 and included a 64 x 125 foot (20 x 38 meter) addition. The contractor, Edwin Buzzell, agreed to procure hard pine timber from mills in the southern United States at a good price and to have it shipped by boat and railway to the T.G. Plant factory. When external events caused the shipments to be late and cut to different specifications, the T.G. Plant Company canceled the contract, returned the unused lumber, and bought soft southern pine lumber in the Boston market at a much higher price.

In 1904, the Plant Company built other additions. Massachusetts, Suffolk County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to William Gaston, 14 February 1901, Book 2738: 130–132; William Gaston to T.G. Plant Company, 7 March 1902, Book 2811: 578– 579; William Gaston to T.G. Plant Company, 10 May 1904, Book 2967: 378–379; Institution for Savings in Roxbury to William Gaston, 17 May 1904, Book 2967: 376; William Gaston to T.G. Plant Company, 18 November 1904, Book 3005: 500–501; Institution for Savings in Roxbury to William Gaston, 22 November 1904, Book 3005: 498–499; William Gaston to T.G. Plant Company, 7 May 1908, Book 3287: 194–195; William Gaston to T.G. Plant Company, 9 July 1909, Book 3384: 614–616. McDermott: 272. Sobel & Raimo: 712. James T. White & Company, Volume 26: 82–83. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Boston, Municipal Court.

Edwin Buzzell v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 1585, 13 March 1906 to 4 March 1907.

Roslindale News, “Building Applications,” 21 March 1903. Jamaica Plain News, “Building Permits,” 20 August 1904; “A Prosperous Local Industry.”

54 Another source reported the T.G. Plant Company to be the world’s largest and most modern manufacturer of women’s shoes under one roof. Nowhere does anyone give their definition of “large.” The fact that it was called so on company letterhead, which circulated among manufacturers, who could give it the lie, lends credence to the claim. Such praise needs to be taken guardedly. It was common for mainstream newspapers to laud conditions in local factories and resort to hyperbole.

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A Castle in the Clouds: Nonetheless, Plant’s factories received reports of good conditions from a variety of sources. The strikes against his firm were generally not about wages or conditions but open versus closed shops. In 1910, the Plant Company produced 5,950,000 pairs of shoes per year. The animal consumption figures seem to have been derived from daily estimates incorrectly extrapolated to annual figures. I multiplied the daily figures by 350 days (fifty work weeks per year) to arrive at annual figures.

Jamaica Plain News, “W.L. Ratcliffe New Head of T.G. Plant Co.,” 7 January 1911.

Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” William McGaffe in U.S. Justice Department, United States v. United Shoe Machinery Company & others, Volume 24: 10428, 10443. Superintendent & Foreman, “The Thomas G. Plant Company.” Welliver: 334, 338. McDermott: 267.

55 In 1906, almost all workers used stairs at the T.G. Plant factory. Women working on the sixth floor, disabled women workers going to other floors, and one or two crippled men rode two freight elevators just before work and just after lunch. Workers were not allowed to use elevators during work hours, except on company business, and only between more than four floors. In order to build this enormous facility, the T.G. Plant Company entered into negotiated settlements with neighboring property owners. Gender differentiated labor was typical of the shoe industry, as opposed to other work, such as in the textile industry. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County: Phillips; Declaration: T.G. Plant, 21 February 1901, Book 2738: 132–133; Lily Friedman to T.G. Plant Company, 17 May 1909, Book 3364: 386; Fannie Lesser to T.G. Plant Company, 23 April 1910, Book 3444: 611–612. Blewett, Men, Women & Work: 222–226. Ferland, “In Search of the Unbound Promethia”: 15–24. Parr: 34–58. Daniel Nelson: 108, 118.

Walkowitz: 105–106.

56 The enameled leathers in women’s shoes were susceptible to climatic fluctuations, so the maintenance of constant temperature and humidity was important. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” A major industrial disaster took place at the Grover Shoe Factory in the nearby city of Brockton, Massachusetts in 1905. A boiler explosion led to a building collapse and fire that killed or injured over 200 workers. New York Times, “Explosion Kills 53; Many Missing,” 21 March 1905. Such events undoubtedly influenced the up-to-date features in the new T.G. Plant facility.

57 Ratcliffe. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Cross Johnson in U.S. Department of Justice, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v.

USMC, United Shoe Machine Company of New Jersey & others, Volume 7: 4033.

Gray: 2.

58 Jamaica Plain News, “A Prosperous Local Industry.”

59 I have not located the T.G. Plant Company booklet on U.S. business. The

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Tom Plant and the American Dream company netted 89% profit on its 1908 investment ($1,122,196.28 on $1,250,000).

As Gaynor O’Gorman summarized: ”[V]ery nice going for a concern that started with a capital of only $22,000.” O’Gorman: 298. McDermott: 266–267. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Jamaica Plain News, “A Prosperous Local Industry.”

60 McDermott: 266–267.

61 Olmsted Brothers continued the work of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and was managed by his sons. Their correspondence shows disagreement over the park’s layout and cost; their principal contacts were Alfred Grover and Tom Plant. Cristina Ashjian researched these files. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” O’Gorman: 276. Olmsted Records.

62 The T.G. Plant Company concerts included readings and popular songs, with piano accompaniment, by local artists: 150 people attended the first concert.

Plant’s vocational program could refer to participation in an effort in which the United Shoe Machinery Company and other firms also participated, with local schools. Such technical programs were common in the boot and shoe industry, allowing workers to learn changing machinery systems; they were also subsidized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Jamaica Plain News, “A Prosperous Local Industry”; “Noon Concerts At Plant’s Factory”; “A Jamaica Plain School Leads Way,” 19 October 1907. O’Gorman: 422–423. Gray: 2.

63 Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.”

64 Massachusetts adopted child labor laws in the 1870s and 1880s that raised the workforce entry age, but minors still worked. Enforcement was difficult. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Suffolk County, Superior Court: Herman Suttner v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 12765, 6 December 1901; Luke Farrell v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 6334, 1 June 1903; Louis Zerbel v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 14001, 1 February 1904; Lizzie Chalamel v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 16544, no date; Daniel McMullin v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 29039, 4 November 1907; Charles Thurston v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 19134, 3 April 1905; Frank Kelley v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 19759, 5 July 1904; Wertman Jones v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 26238, 2 April 1906; Mary Barrett v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 27921, 3 October 1904; Michael Craven v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 29958, 4 May 1908; Alexander Hunzelman v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 38120, 7 June 1909; Phillips; Frances McDonough v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 46981, 1 June 1908; Frances McDonough, Jr. v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 46979, 1 June 1908; Mary Tansey v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 53082 / 53083, 5 June 1911; Angus Stewart v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 57337, 27 December 1915; Prudence DeLang v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 54864, 5 June 1911; Ethel Mullins v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 54430, 5 June 1911; John Goode v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 56147, 3 October 1910; Patrick Denehy v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 56641, 3 October 1910; Thomas Maher v. T. G. Plant Company, Nº 58699, 1 April 1912. Daniel Nelson: 125–126.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 65 Stock-investment programs were not uncommon. Thomas Edison, for example, awarded stock in subsidiary companies to his most valued workers. Charles Ross in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Volume 4: 1721; Abram Sochat: 1735. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Hughes: 123. O’Gorman: 189. Daniel Nelson: 96, 99.

66 By 1906, the workday began at 7:30 a.m., broke for an hour’s lunch at noon, and ended at 5:30 p.m. The story of color-coded uniforms came from a source (Patricia Gray) who was not knowledgeable of Plant’s life until long after his retirement.

O’Gorman: 276. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Phillips. Gray: 2. Von Hoffman, Local Attachments: 202.

67 It is difficult to reconstruct worker nationalities from lists because of the anglicizing of names. For example, Rosenschein became Ross. Walter Marx, Interview. U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Volume 4: Charles Ross, 1722; Abram Sochat, 1738; Frank Morrison, 1699; Volume 7: Cross Johnson, 4032; Benjamin Epstein, 4037; Arthur Crouch, 4040; Joseph Beaudreau, 4048–4049; Charles Weidman, 4050–4053; Volume 8: Hampars Harpootlian, 4589; Peter Gostanian, 4593. Von Hoffman, Interview. Jamaica Plain News, “Contention in Plant’s Shoe Factory.”

68 Plant’s manufacturing empire wasn’t as idyllic as portrayed by pro-management writers. Plant broke a strike of 200 leather cutters in 1907, vowing to always run an open shop. USMC company historian Gaynor O’Gorman contrasted Plant’s factory with ex-governor William Douglas’ shoe factory of 3000 workers in Brockton, which paid the highest wages in the industry and ran only as a closed shop. Nonetheless, O’Gorman asserts that Plant was not “niggardly” towards his employees. O’Gorman: 242–243, 298. Massachusetts, Labor Department, Board of Conciliation & Arbitration, Nº 40: 11–12.

69 We have to take into consideration that the primary description of Plant’s factory came from a Maine newspaper and that Maine had some of the worst factory conditions in the nation. In contrast, Plant was seen as a radical progressive.

However, he was not unique in his concern for his workers. For example, George Johnson (1857–1948) started as a worker in a Massachusetts shoe factory and became a good baseball player and a socialist. Promoted to shop foreman, he continued to rise through the ranks to become president of one of the largest shoe firms in the country – Endicott, Johnson & Company. Johnson evidenced much ambivalence about his role as manager, instituting many progressive benefits that were similar to Plant’s innovations. Johnson was the business partner of Plant’s friend and associate, Henry Endicott. Zahavi: 8–28. Marcus & Segal: 228. Daniel Nelson: 134.

70 Daniel Nelson: ix–x, 25–26.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 71 Daniel Nelson admits his figures for factory size, derived from the Twelfth U.S. Census, are imperfect. For example, he does not calculate the number of workers in factories from the 1910 census, the peak year of Plant’s operation. Consolidation of shoe factories was underway between 1890 and 1900. In the 1880s, the number of shoe manufacturers had increased by over 100 firms, to 2082 companies. In 1900, they had fallen to 1599 firms – a merger of almost 500 producers. Plant’s growth was an example of this consolidation. Daniel Nelson: ix, 4, 6–7, 168. Welliver: 337.

72 Plant’s concern for workflow appeared in his first factory in 1891–1892, as he was doing his best in a rented facility. Nelson’s summary of shoe factories identified top to bottom workflow as normal, while Lynn journalists considered it innovative – reflecting different modifications in different locales at different times. What Nelson sees as “typical” and “obvious” was perhaps an average factory in the sectors of the shoe industry that he reviewed. This suggests that Plant was paying more attention to larger industrial innovations than were other shoe manufacturers. It could also reflect the degree of mechanization a factory had adopted – different technology demanded different arrangements. Factory descriptions after 1900 tended to echo the glowing descriptions of Plant’s Boston factory for cleanliness and size. Daniel Nelson: 15, 17–19, 20–23, 107.

73 The shoe industry had a turnover rate of almost 70% of its employees a year, circa 1910. Several national organizations promoted welfare work, including the League for Social Service and the welfare department of the National Civic Federation.

Although a national safety movement began in 1906–1907, it accomplished little until after World War I. The amenities provided by Plant were evident in other firms in the 1890s, such as those of Henry Heinz in Pittsburgh and William Filene in Boston. Plant never went to the expense of establishing a company town, and this might have been part of his reason for locating in the developing fringe of an urban center. Nelson shows how urban and rural location made different demands on factory welfare programs. Urban factories tended to develop cafeterias, rest rooms and medical departments, as well as insurance and savings programs. Plant also developed some rural factory amenities, such as libraries and recreational activities. Daniel Nelson: 29, 30–33, 86–87, 101–104, 106–107, 115–118.

74 A similar stock-sharing and employee benefit plan was that of the N.O. Nelson Manufacturing Company, which began their innovations while producing plumbing supplies in Leclaire, Illinois about 1890. Trade schools were prevalent in the shoe industry in Massachusetts, where they were subsidized by the state.

Daniel Nelson: 34–35, 46, 51–54, 77–78, 96–99, 105.

75 Few companies adopted all the innovative changes proposed by consulting firms. The T.G. Plant Company was one of the firms to most completely implement scientific management. Daniel Nelson: 48–49, 50, 70–71.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 76 Public policy and private interests did not converge in factory standards until after World War I, when the safety movement took hold. Daniel Nelson: 12–13, 124–127, 132–134, 138–139, 149.

77 Zahavi: 2. Parr: 39.

78 Parr: 36. Zahavi: x, 1–2. Bryan Palmer: 7–55.

79 Parr: 39–40.

80 Sherman Whipple (1860–1930), a New Hampshire attorney who worked for Tom Plant, shared interests, such as membership in the Algonquin Club, horses, and travel in Europe. Whipple’s social connections to Plant are, however, unknown.

New York Times, “F.L. Emery Dead.” Boston Evening Transcript, “Sherman L. Whipple Dies.”

81 Tom Plant remained a member of the Algonquin Club until 1914 and a nonresident member until 1922. William Campbell was a golf professional brought from Scotland to design The Country Club in Brookline. He objected to the exclusivity of the Brookline club and said that golf had to be popularized among the common people in order to be a successful venture. He won National Opens and moved to Franklin Park in Boston in protest to the Brookline club’s policies.

Edward Clark: (1897) 439. Ada Clark: (1904) 589; (1905) 594, 605, 622; (1906) 600, 611, 627; (1907) 607, 639; (1908) 606, 632; (1909) 621, 647; (1910) 679, 705; (1911) 704, 729; (1912) 820, 849; (1913) 794; (1914) 795; (1915) 798; (1916) 797; (1917) 797; (1918) 797; (1919) 797; (1920) 768; (1921) 768; (1922) 768. Lamprey.

82 In 1904, the Hotel Somerset had 58 families of mixed ethnicity and, by 1907, 77 residents. William and Margaret Plant lived at 159 Sargent Street, in Newton, from 1903 to 1906, and then moved to 83 Cotton Street, both locations having large houses. William and Margaret Plant had four children: Amy (born in 1886), William (1889), Thomas (1890), and Everett (1893). Ada Clark: (1904) 113, 193; (1905) 113, 193; (1906) 118, 196; (1907) 120, 198; (1908) 126, 199; (1909) 56, 215; (1910) 211; (1911) 54, 218. Sampson, Murdock & Company, The Boston Directory: (1904) 1412; (1905) 1446; (1906) 1472; (1907) 1363; (1908) 1385; (1909) 1439; (1910) 1470; (1911) 1539; The Newton Directory: (1919) 492; (1921) 545. Drew Allis Company: (1903) 532, 190; (1905) 540,199; (1907) 503, 81; (1909) 530; (1911) 536; (1913) 553; (1917) 489. Barbara Rabinovitz, “How swiftly passes Somerset’s glory” Boston Herald, 27 March 1980. Anthony Yudis, “Somerset Hotel in Back Bay is converting to condos,” Boston Globe, 23 January 1982.

83 Boston Herald, “Many Voyagers to Europe,” 24 June 1902.

84 The Tuftonboro property was sold to William Ratcliffe, treasurer of the T.G. Plant Company, in 1907. On the same day, Ratcliffe sold it to Margaret Plant. It is hard to imagine why such a complex transaction was used, unless to hide it from litigation. A search has failed to turn up any references to the Plant family

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Tom Plant and the American Dream in Dublin or Cheshire County, New Hampshire. This would appear to be the first of Tom’s increasing retreats to country resorts. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry: Robert Bowman to William Plant, 28 July 1904, unidentified book and page number; William Plant to William Ratcliffe, 20 June 1907, Book 130: 585; William Ratcliffe to Margaret Plant, 20 June 1907, Book 130: 560. Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife.” Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued

by Wife.” Ashjian, “The Plant Family at Tuftonboro Neck.” Leonard & Seward: 605–616. Allison: 100–101. H.H. Piper, “A Sketch of Dublin,” The Gazette Monthly 1896: 79–97. O’Gorman: 276.

85 Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued by Wife.”

86 Boston Journal, “Mrs. Plant Gives an Outing for Children,” 11 August 1905.

87 Alexander Pope (1849–1924) was known as the “American Landseer” for his animal portraits. From 1900 to 1920, more horses were used than at any other time in American history. Although industry adopted relatively modern concepts of production, the horse remained the primary means of conveyance. By the 1880s, society people had begun to form thoroughbred animal associations and sponsor regional horse shows that, after 1910, entered the society pages of newspapers.

Although the term “thoroughbred” had existed, it remained a generic term of “quality” until about 1911, when the proliferation of pedigree books of specific “breeds” took place. Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife.”

Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued by Wife.” Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Appeal, Smith v. Plant. Howard: 210–211, 213, 235–236, 251. Harry Smith, in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC: 4058–4059.

“Horse Show in the South,” New York Times, 28 April 1905. “Vanderbilt Four First in London,” New York Times, 9 June 1907.

88 Tom Plant had no children, and so this report must refer to one of his sibling’s children. I inquired about the property in Kansas, but no listing was found under the name of Plant. O’Gorman: 276. “Shoe Manufacturer Buys Ranch in Kansas,” Boot & Shoe Recorder, 17 February 1909: 69. “Thomas G. Plant Buys Big Estate in Kansas” The Shoe Retailer, 20 February 1909: 27.

89 The debacle over horse clubs began when Tom Plant became a trustee of the Charles River Speedway Club Stable. In 1905, it purchased a third of an acre of land, with buildings, from the Gentlemen’s Driving Club of Boston. This club had been organized around 1903, lay in the old town of Brighton, and abutted the Charles River Reservation, a Boston city park. The agreement stipulated that if any sale occurred, Tom was to be paid $4000, which was his contribution to the cost of the building on the premises, over and above his $1000 subscription fee to the club. This indicates that the club must have fallen into financial difficulty and Plant and his friends had bailed them out. On 24 February 1906, Plant and his associates conveyed this land back to the club. The stable seems to have been dominated by

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A Castle in the Clouds: Plant and the other two trustees, and was also marked by dissension. Clarence Marks of Chicago withdrew from the stable and club under dispute: “While at times I may show signs of temporary insanity when pressed to do something against my better judgment, at this sitting I believe myself to be of sound mind and body.”

In 1906, the members of the stable transferred their interests to the Metropolitan Driving Club of Boston, in return for lifetime memberships in the latter. Plant’s name appears twice under the list of subscribers; beside his name the first time is $1000 and the second time $4210 – a sizable investment – more than that of anyone else. This transition appears to be a merger of the two clubs and could indicate a conflict resolved by money and power. Massachusetts, Suffolk County, Deed Registry: Gentlemen’s Driving Club of Boston to Thomas Plant & others, 7 January 1905, Book 3051: 251–252; Thomas Plant & others to the Gentlemen’s Driving Club of Boston, 24 February 1906, Book 3155: 378–380; Clarence Marks to Thomas Plant & others, 7 September and 17 September 1906, Book 3155: 380; Thomas Plant & others, 17 September 1906, Book 3155: 380–382.

90 Gaynor O’Gorman thought his name was originally “La Plante” and that he came from Skowhegan. I have not seen such an error in his name and birth town in newspapers, so assume that O’Gorman acquired his information from oral tradition. O’Gorman: 296. Welliver: 338.

91 Several people named Thomas Plant lived in Boston in the early 1900s, along with others around the United States. One, also named Thomas G. Plant, was a prominent management leader during the San Francisco waterfront strike of 1934.

92 The folklorist, Sandy Ives, wrote: “Myths are not simply something to be dismissed by the Clear Light of Historical Research. They have a reality of their own that can tell us a great deal about ourselves and our time – or another time.” In particular, Dr. Ives’ volume about George Magoon offers a lot of food for thought about the folkloric and interpretive aspects of one’s life. Tom Plant seems to have stood halfway between a 19th century and 20th century journalistic portrayal of the businessman as a private and public figure, reality and symbol, common man and hero. Ives, Letter; George Magoon: 20–22, 295, 299. Diamond: 176–182.

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Chapter V – Shoe Machinery War: Saint George & the Dragon Contemporary newspapers considered Plant’s rise from humble shoe worker to ownership of one of the largest shoe factories to be “meteoric.” Even his opponents thought him to be “one of the most energetic and enterprising shoe manufacturers that New England has ever developed” and were generous in their praise of him as a “free wheeling genius,” “indefatigable,” “colorful and energetic.”1 Gaynor O’Gorman Sr. was an officer and chronicler of the United Shoe Machinery Company and praised him: … considerable of a genius and a hard worker, Plant as he was called during most of his life was what is now called a (l)oner: he made shoes differently, ran his factory differently, owned outright a portfolio of patents and entertained ambitions and dreams rather unusual and somewhat grandiose. He achieved a good many of them, too.2 O’Gorman estimated that Plant had developed “one of the finest shoe factories in the world.”3 However, Plant’s genius became restless and, to the dismay of the United Shoe Machinery Company, his attention was directed to the production of shoe machinery.

The Rise of the United Shoe Machinery Company Originally, machinery had been custom-built at the mills that used it, but, by the mid-19th century, machine production became an industry in its own right. This new industry faced many problems, from strong competition and resulting lower profits to questions of how to provide effective maintenance to its manufactured equipment.4 A solution to this conundrum came from the shoe industry.

Gordon McKay had developed shoe-making machines in Lawrence, Massachusetts since the 1850s. More importantly, he refined a method to distribute them, one that some considered the most “advanced” marketing system in the world: 107

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• A set-up fee of $400 for stitcher & auxiliary machines, including instructors.

• Royalty payments of a ½¢ to 3¢ for shoes made on the

machines.

• Other machines leased at a minimal cost with no royalty.

• For a fee, the machines were maintained by factory

representatives.5 McKay considered the use of the machine, not the machine itself, as the commodity. This “lease system” became popular because it let manufacturing companies establish themselves with little upfront capital, while allowing machinery companies to receive profits through low but long-term royalties and rents. Over the course of thirty years, McKay and others consolidated the manufacture of shoe machinery through mergers, patent purchases, and patent infringement cases in court. Although many inventors developed these machines, only five firms dominated the industry when they merged, in 1899, to form the United Shoe Machinery Company (USMC).6 Over the course of the next decade, the USMC developed a virtual monopoly in the production of shoe-making machines. They took over 55 companies, held $70 million worth of common stock and $18 million of surplus funds, and paid additional millions in dividends. With almost 81,000 machines on lease in the United States alone, they controlled over 80% of the nation’s shoe machinery. Their domestic monopoly was protected by a 60% tariff against imported shoe machinery. USMC directors interlocked with the boards of banks and trust companies, forming a capital alliance worth $500 million. The firm built a massive facility in Beverly, Massachusetts and became one of the first truly giant multinational corporations in the United States. As Boston attorney Sherman Whipple wrote: “[T] he monopoly which the United Company enjoys is one of the most complete and most absolute that this monopoly-ridden country has ever witnessed.”7 The secret of their success lay in the lease system.

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The USMC had retained its parent firms’ lease system, but added a “tying clause” that prohibited shoe manufacturers from using machines from other companies – in other words, they were “tied” to the USMC. Since it was the only place that a full line of shoe-making machines could be had and – in many cases – the only place that some of the machines could be found, shoe manufacturers had no choice but to lease their machinery from the USMC. A manufacturer had to sign a seventeen-year contract, stipulating exclusive use of their machinery. What had once been a choice now became an obligation, one that was open to abuse. If shoe manufacturers violated their contract by using equipment from another company, then they could either lose the use of USMC machines and be forced out of business or have to pay a significant fine. The leases were so shrewdly worded that the USMC was able to deny contractual coercion while actually practicing coercion.8 The financial returns to the USMC were worth the trouble that their aggressive practices caused. A $250 welt-sewing machine could bring them up to $1200 a year in royalties from the shoes made on it, which meant an income of over $20,000 for the USMC during the seventeen years of its lease. Although only seventeen months of royalties would pay for a comparable machine from an English firm, the tying clause prevented such a purchase. The USMC did ruin people who opposed them. Pierre Tessier had manufactured shoes in Haverhill, Massachusetts. When he installed a welt and turn machine from a Canadian firm, the USMC ordered him to remove it. When he refused, they invoked the tying clause of his lease and removed all their machines. Tessier’s business and life were destroyed.9 Since the USMC had become the only significant buyer of shoe machinery patents, inventors were also tied to them. If the USMC bought a patent, they didn’t have to use it – so they would buy varieties of the same machine, and then suppress the ones they did not want to lease. Besides being a problem for inventors, it caused problems for shoe manufacturers owning discontinued machines, since they could not get replacements or parts. A common cause began to develop between malcontent shoe manufacturers and 109

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inventors. However, the shoe industry itself was divided in its loyalty.

The USMC had co-opted larger shoe manufacturers by making them stockholders and directors of the USMC. These lucky few benefited, as their dividends from the USMC were essentially a rebate on their royalties and facilitated their company’s growth.10 People began to say that to be a shoe manufacturer and a USMC stockholder or director gave an unfair advantage.

Objection to the USMC trust was rapid. In 1901, a report against them was filed with the New England Shoe & Leather Association.

The USMC empire began to come under attack by larger shoe manufacturers – like Tom Plant – who had not been co-opted and thought that they deserved special privileges for their large-scale rental of USMC equipment. After 1905, industrial outrage and state politics merged. Candidates ran for the Massachusetts legislature on the issue, which dovetailed with a gathering national storm against trusts. Although Massachusetts prohibited tying clauses in 1907, USMC’s revised lease was so complicated by “barbed-wire entanglements” that most shoe manufacturers continued to abide by it rather than risk a “vast expenditure for legal advice.”11 There are two versions of Plant’s subsequent attack on the USMC. In one, he is a noble individual battling a rapacious trust, while, in the other, he is a frustrated entrepreneur trying to coerce a benevolent corporation. Why did Plant not content himself with consolidating his position in the world of shoe manufacture? Why did he enter shoe machinery production and emerge as a leader of the opposition to the USMC? The answers are complicated and are as much questions of psychology as economics.

Tom Plant had developed incredible self-confidence, was accustomed to getting his own way, and was obstinate when opposed.

The reorganization and growth of his company corresponded with the rise of the USMC. He had quarreled with Sydney Winslow about royalty payments in the 1890s, when Winslow had been president of one of the USMC constituent companies, and the stage was set for further disagreement when Winslow became president of the USMC. Plant contemplated ways to increase his shoe manufacturing 110

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profits and developed plans for vertical integration. Shoe machinery production was one of the few routes open to him.12 When Tom Plant enlisted in the “Shoe Machinery War,” he quickly rose to the rank of general.

Prelude to Battle In 1902, the USMC convinced Plant to rent their equipment. It was a pact with the devil that soon fell apart. They forced him to surrender machinery from other firms and sued him for patent infringement on a heeling machine. He lost in court. His heeling machine was probably just in a tradition of in-house invention, a mere adjunct to shoe manufacture.13 What is important is that it probably gave him a seed of inspiration that would later flower. His particular problem at this time was with the lease system.

Plant did not want to make royalty payments, which could have cost him up to $100,000 per year. It wasn’t that he objected to royalties but that he felt large customers of the USMC deserved a special discount. He had already avoided the tying clauses – to some degree – by paying extra money for a “premium lease,” which allowed him to use certain machines of other companies. From 1902 to 1905, Plant tried to work within the system and brought about the formation of a committee in the National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association to review USMC’s lease system. When Plant failed in his attempt to revise the lease system to his satisfaction, he consulted the legal profession. They told him that not only was their lease system invalid, but that the USMC itself was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.14 It became apparent that whatever needed to be done needed to be done quickly. The USMC was building an impregnable empire, as they bought out the competition, absorbed ideas, appropriated expired patents, forced buy-outs, sub-contracted work, and bankrupted opponents. Plant began to build an alliance of lawyers, politicians, inventors, machinists, shoe manufacturers and bankers to take what USMC would not give. Around 1904–1905, it was 111

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noted that he began to spend money freely in New England machine shops to develop what became his “Wonder Worker” system of shoe machinery. This would become the principal weapon in his fight against the USMC.15 Several shoe machinery companies had hung on and competed for part of the market with the USMC. The Boylston Manufacturing Company was the closest to making a series of machines parallel to those of the USMC, but even they had major gaps in their line.

Many of the firms made only a few machines or imported them from Europe. All of them were considered “crude” and substandard.

Tom Plant, however, came to represent a special threat to the USMC. Their patent department saw reports of Plant’s work in the U.S. Patent Journal and various trade journals, which they read like the sports page.

The president of the USMC said Plant’s shoe machinery interests were first brought to his attention in 1904. It was common knowledge that someone was approaching Lynn shoe manufacturers about a new line of non-royalty machinery. The USMC considered Plant’s activities a “gathering storm.”16 Business in New England was divided between two factions, one headed by the First National Bank of Boston and the other by Shawmut Bank, also located in Boston. The USMC was connected with First National, while Plant was allied to Shawmut. Bank officers wheeled and dealed corporate information like poker chips. Plant expanded his financial contacts outside of the region when, at the start of 1905, he became involved with the Manufacturers Machine Company in New Jersey. In 1907, he added to his financial associations when he was elected a director of the International Trust Company of Boston.

USMC executives admired the quiet style that masked Plant’s real purpose until he was ready to move.17 Plant assembled an alliance of seven Massachusetts machine shops. This was the era when mechanics and machinists were the nation’s inventors. Of them, he was closest to Maurice Bresnahan. In 1906, Plant bought the Bresnahan Shoe Machinery Company and hired a talented English inventor, John Heys, as its president. He 112

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then moved Bresnahan to manage the Central Foundry Company.

Another close ally was Frank Stanley, whose Stanley Manufacturing Company had been the largest firm opposing the USMC. Stanley was also celebrated for his version of the “Stanley steamer” automobile.

The opening shots of the “Shoe Machinery War” came from this group as they developed their Wonder Worker shoe machinery.18 Many of their patents were run through the Manufacturers Machine Company.

Plant contributed his entrepreneurial skill, money and vision, while the member firms provided their considerable experience in the manufacture of machinery. Their alliance used expired patents and accumulated new inventions. For example, Fred Emery (Plant’s friend and patent attorney) toured the Copeland factory in South Framingham, Massachusetts in 1905. Emery obtained an innovative thread and welt cutting attachment, which had been invented by the superintendent of their machine shop. Contrary to the “Tom Plant Mythology,” Plant was not so much an inventor as a skillful organizer of the intellectual labor of others.19 As Fred Emery wrote in a letter:

New machines have been devised to perform work never before attempted by machinery, and in a number of instances, to carry out processes never before known, except possibly in custom work, but which Mr. Plant – from his point of view as a shoe manufacturer – has discerned to be necessary if the methods of manufacturing shoes are to keep pace with the times.20

For example, their welting machine held, measured and cut a welt and its thread in a smooth series of movements, saving one inch (2.5 centimeters) of welt per shoe and thus mechanizing the handwork required by the USMC welter. It also stopped and pulled the needle out of the leather, allowing the shoe to be easily removed, and prepared the machine to welt the next shoe. A welter had to perform this task 600 to 1000 times per day, and it was estimated that this innovation alone saved a ¼¢ per shoe, which, in September 1910, would have amounted to $30,000 per year for the Thomas G. Plant Company.21 113

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Wonder Worker Welting Machine. From the Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Catalogue, 1910. Courtesy of W. Clark Goodchild, Beverly, Massachusetts. This welter alone was said to be worth more to the USMC than all the rest of Tom Plant’s machines put together.

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Tom Plant assembled a very able legal team in his battle against the USMC. Frederick Emery (1867–1933) was one of his friends who had served as a manager at the Thomas G. Plant Company. He became the firm’s patent counsel as the Shoe Machinery War heated up. Sherman Whipple (1860–1930) was the leading trial lawyer in New England and was said to be a “legal fighting machine.” William Gaston (1859–1927) had been associated with Plant in property and financial development. He had powerful political connections in Massachusetts and was a specialist in business relations.22 Although Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) declined to join Plant’s legal team, he consulted with Plant, and the case became a turning point in his career. A Boston corporate attorney, Brandeis had been a lawyer and director of the USMC. He had refined their lease system and tying clauses, even defending them before the Massachusetts legislature. However, he had a change of heart. He tried to influence the USMC to change their lease system but failed, so he quit in 1907 and took up the cause of industrial democracy, becoming known for his opposition to trusts and government excess – “the curse of bigness.” Brandeis told an executive at the USMC that anyone who tried to put Plant out of business “would look jail in the face.”23 Other consultants included some of the top patent specialists in the United States. Plant’s team of lawyers spent almost a year researching all current patents, comparing them to Plant’s general designs and to over 600 of his own patents. They reported to Plant’s designers on how to proceed without infringement. Emery summarized: “Mr. Plant’s machines embody designs and methods in shoe making so far advanced beyond existing methods as to render the patents of the United Company largely obsolete and wholly ineffective.”24 Plant resorted to psychological warfare and had a flair for the dramatic. He threw a banquet for 150 of his employees at the American House in March 1908 – the guests were serenaded by the Boston Philharmonic during their meal, followed by a vaudeville show. It was insinuated that he threw this soirée to rival a USMC banquet a month before.25 115

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Plant had an advantage. The USMC was tied to the machine systems on which they held patents, and a large number of their patents were merely refinements on basic machines that had expired patents. Plant’s inventors could “work around” possible infringement by creating different refinements – like the attachment they were able to add to their welter from the Copeland factory. They were also able to start from scratch – to invent new machines and totally abandon others. Ironically, Plant’s success was magnified by the success of the USMC, which had virtually wiped out larger independent shoemachinery manufacturers and left little competition.26 The future of Thomas Gustave Plant seemed rosy indeed.

Components were fabricated in a variety of shops and assembled into working machines at a central facility. Plant began to have them installed in his factory in 1908. They were brought on line as fast as they were produced and in such a way so as to not interfere with shoe production. Despite the disruption of this conversion, the Thomas G. Plant Company, in the course of two years, added over 1500 workers and increased production by 5500 shoes.27 Although Plant’s focus had shifted to shoe machinery, his complaint still lay with the lease system. Shoe machinery was his means to quite a different end. In May 1910, the U.S. Patent Office issued 30 patents on shoe machinery to Plant and 55 patents to his associates. It was reported to be a record number for one issue of the Patent Journal and perhaps was intended as a bit of drama. By the spring of 1910, Plant had enough machinery to begin a “rapid fire” offensive.28 As Gaynor O’Gorman put it: He proceeded to put on the most spectacular campaign ever seen in shoe machinery, moving on many fronts to force the United Shoe to buy him out. In the end United did buy him out, but he didn’t force them to do so as will be seen. That the intention of competing with United in machinery was never in Plant’s mind cannot be said, for who can tell what thoughts were from time to time entertained in that imaginative brain.29

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Over the next few months, proposals and counterproposals proliferated, and the Shoe Machinery War raged. It was fought in the headlines of the country’s largest newspapers, in trade journals, law offices and court rooms, in private clubs and on race tracks. The shoe machinery warriors employed secret agents, and the issue became a cause célèbre for political aspirants.

Opening Shots, Skirmishes & Battles In the winter of 1909–1910, Plant told the USMC to take their machines off of his premises. The USMC refused, claiming that he still had nine years left on the leases. Plant’s lawyer gave the USMC formal notice that they would be held liable under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. In April 1910, Plant had their machines removed, placed in storage and curtailed further royalty payments. He then installed his own Wonder Worker shoe-machinery and increased shoe production.30 In a show of bravado, Plant erected a huge electric sign over his factory that proclaimed:

T.G. Plant Co. Capacity 17,000 Pairs per Day. Made by Wonder Worker Non-Royalty Machinery In those days of small-scale electric lighting, this spectacular display drew a lot of notice. Plant followed this up with other public displays, dedicating a $200,000 park next to his factory with trees, shrubbery, an athletic field and even a greenhouse to provide flowers so that each day of the work week would be “flower day” in one department “for the woman workers.” USMC chronicler, Gaynor O’Gorman, reported that Plant had a “showcase” factory and that he was a “master showman.”31 Plant anticipated the peaking discontent of shoe manufacturers who had tried to work with the USMC. Charles Jones of the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company and William McElwain of Tom McAn Shoes had tried to convince the USMC to do away 117

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with the tying clauses. In the expectation of such revision, Jones even lobbied the Massachusetts legislature on behalf of the USMC in 1906–1907. After his political help, they refused to adjust their leases.32 Growing discontent attracted other shoe manufacturers into opposing the USMC. Plant approached Charles Jones and Henry Endicott with a plan.

Jones was still smarting from his betrayal by the USMC. Endicott was owner of the largest men’s heavy-weight shoe manufacturing business in the world. Plant proposed that Jones invest $125,000 to $150,000 and Endicott $700,000 to $800,000 in his new line of shoe machinery, install the Wonder Worker system in their factories, and then – together with Plant’s other partners – they would sell the shoe machinery system to the USMC for a large profit and run it in their factories without having to pay royalties. Plant’s idea was that the conversion of these two shoe manufacturers to the Wonder Worker system would be a “club” with which to beat the USMC into submission. After consultation with patent counsels, and despite favorable reports, Jones and Endicott deferred. The USMC threatened litigation. And the production of heavier men’s shoes on Plant’s “light” machines gave them concern for breakdowns and their ability to get parts and service.33 Henry Endicott had good connections with the USMC. He told Plant that if he had something good, the USMC would buy it – the combination of Wonder Worker and United Shoe machinery would lead to a better result than either system alone. He said that he would approach the USMC about it. Plant offered Endicott a $250,000 commission if he could arrange a sale. It is unclear what negotiations between Endicott and the USMC, if any, took place. William McElwain proposed to install a few machines as an experiment in his Tom McAn shoe factory, but Plant refused, saying that his profit lay only in a $20,000 system, which would turn out 1000 pairs of shoes per day.34 While Jones and Endicott approached the USMC, Plant invited several “western” shoe manufacturers to see his shoe machinery at work in his factory. These men from St. Louis and Chicago had been 118

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in the forefront with Plant in pressing the USMC for special rates for large customers.35 The westerners were anxious to have an alliance against the USMC, but their review of the Wonder Worker system were mixed.

Dedication from The Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company Catalogue.

Courtesy of W. Clark Goodchild, Beverly, Massachusetts.

In June 1910, Plant produced a circular, catalogue and advertisements for his Wonder Worker shoe machinery. The catalogue was a spectacular quarto volume bound in morocco leather with marbled end-papers and printed in two colors on glossy paper with gilt edges. It served the purpose of attacking the USMC as well as advertising its product. The circular touted Plant as sales manager and declared his ability to “fully equip a shoe factory from 119

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the Cutting to the Packing Departments, in competition with the United Shoe Machinery Trust.”36 Plant distributed advertising materials around the country, proclaiming his shoes “Made with Wonder Worker.” One electrical device consisted of two hands, holding a Queen Quality shoe, which flexed the shoe sole above a handsome wooden box lettered with the company’s advertising. All this promotion was aimed at throwing the USMC off balance with the threat of competition. It had its effect. In June 1910, the USMC distributed a circular to its customers offering a “rebate” to those who had “faithfully observed the covenants of their leases.”37 As one critic of the USMC observed: It sounds like a perfect Santa Clause proposition! All good little shoe manufacturers who go to Sunday school regularly during the months of November and December will find something handsome on the tree at Christmas time. Now is the time to join the class – and be sure to stay away from “Tom” Plant!

He’s a bad boy, and nobody seen playing with him can expect a present.38 Plant continued testing his machines in the factory. Like any new equipment, there were problems. Installation and adaptation of the machinery slowed production. Although faster and more innovative than the USMC machines, they were too lightly built and “rattled themselves all to pieces.” The parts, which had been assembled from different machine shops, did not fit properly and caused the machines to breakdown, requiring extra machinists to tend to them.

The effects were cumulative. The new machines broke more shoe lasts, which then caused breakage of other machines. These problems resulted in a reduction of almost 1500 pairs of shoe a day. Plant’s general manager later stated that it would have been less costly to have just paid the USMC royalties. Nonetheless, the Thomas G. Plant Company was still reported to be the most successful business in the United States and continued to pay dividends on its stock.39 The machine problems caused a loss of piecework, particularly for 120

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shoe-lasters. In June 1910, work committees formed and complaints were made to Plant and his general manager. The workers received a wage increase. However, it was alleged that the USMC had promised to pay three workers to perform industrial espionage as well as to disrupt production by organizing a union and a strike. In particular, the USMC wanted to know about the Wonder Worker shoe machinery, especially the toe-laster and the welter machines.

The USMC also wanted to know the numbers and quality of shoes that each machine processed and who came to see Plant about his machines. When Plant settled with his lasters, the labor agitation ended. The three conspirators were not only fired but got “not one copper” from the USMC, so they sued in the Massachusetts courts.40 In the midst of this controversy, Henry Endicott arranged a meeting at his home between Tom Plant and Sydney Winslow, president of the United Shoe Machinery Company, on 16 June 1910.

Plant entered the meeting bitterly accusing Winslow of snubbing him on a street car. After Endicott got the meeting back on track, Plant announced that his patents were for sale at $6 million and that their price would go up $500,000 per week until the sale was made.

Winslow said he would be pleased to buy after the machines were examined by experts, but that he would pay only their value, not what they cost Plant. The meeting adjourned with the understanding that Winslow would choose his experts and Plant would consider if he would allow his machines to be submitted to an examination.41 Two days later, Winslow and Plant met at the Parker House in Boston. Winslow named three experts to view the Wonder Worker shoe machines, but Plant was fearful of them finding material for litigation or stealing ideas, so he refused the examination unless the USMC placed a $1 million bond. Plant then produced a newspaper attack he had prepared against the USMC and said that he would publish it if they did not buy without the experts’ examination.

Winslow refused. By the end of the month, Winslow told Endicott that the negotiations were finished.42 Over the next few months, Plant and Winslow danced through an acerbic dialogue. Such a dance was one of Winslow’s tactics.

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He is the most patient of men. He never hurries. If he has a big trade on, he will prolong negotiations for days and weeks; will sit up nights, work impossible hours, and literally wear out his opponent, finally winning by sheer superiority of physical force…He would encourage a quarrel or a controversy in order to get information out of discussion. He knows, like Carnegie, that two weeks will answer more questions and more letters than a dozen stenographers.43 Endicott suggested to Winslow that the USMC elect him a director, and that he would then organize an examination of Plant’s machinery. The USMC directors elected Endicott to their board, and Endicott notified Plant that he therefore could not accept the $250,000 commission but that he would continue to work for the sale of the machinery.44 While Endicott worked for the sale on the inside, the parties continued their battle on the outside.

In July 1910, the USMC applied for an injunction against the Thomas G. Plant Company in order to restrain them from using machinery not of USMC manufacture, per the tying clause of their contract. Plant’s lawyers replied that USMC’s lease system was in contravention to the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, it prevented Plant from obtaining better machinery, and the monopoly blocked his entry into the manufacture of shoe machinery. The USMC and Plant fought with patent infringement suits throughout the summer.45 Plant, Winslow and their allies dueled in newspapers and at public gatherings. Plant made good on his newspaper threat to Winslow. On 9 July 1910, he took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times – an essay concerning “Facts About the Situation in Shoe Machinery.” He repeatedly ran another advertisement that began “Manufacturers Attention…,” in which he claimed that the antiquated royalty system was costing shoe manufacturers 10¢ per pair of shoes. On 14 July 1910, Charles Jones made “a savage attack” on the USMC at the New England Shoe & Leather field-day at Salem Willows, in front of such notables as Massachusetts’ Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Boston’s Mayor Fitzgerald.46 122

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Plant let it be known that he would make the stock of USMC “look like 30¢ and end their dividends” and that he would get the government to help and “make all the trouble he could; United would be sorry.” He made good on his threat. In the early summer of 1910, USMC common stock declined from $70 a share to $47.50 – for a loss on paper of over $22 million. Plant also claimed that his lawyer had come up with a new form of legal pleading. Nonetheless, he seemed to be in trouble. He had spent $3 to $4 million on developing his line of shoe machinery and had over $1 million of debts. The USMC used its banking connections to force Plant to the wall.47 The lawsuits brought by the USMC were an additional burden. Under this pressure, Plant again sought an outside intermediary to approach the USMC .

Half-Hearted Truce & Settlement In 1902, Plant had developed the acquaintance of Harry Smith of North Grafton, Massachusetts, through a mutual love of horses.

Smith described himself as “an inventor, manufacturer, and sportsman.” They also shared industrial interests and a patent attorney. At the 1908 Brockton Fair, Smith told Plant that he was “connected” with USMC officers and that it was better “to get in” with the trusts rather than “make faces” at them. Smith’s advances were of mixed origin. Friendship and mutual interests played a part in their relationship, but Smith had also made a second career as an industrial “harmonizer” and told Plant that he could “put it over” for him whenever he was ready to sell to the USMC.48 Smith persisted in 1909 and 1910. He spoke to Caroline Plant and to mutual acquaintances. He wrote letters to Tom on how to deal with the USMC and its officers, as well as talked to USMC officers.

Plant dismissed Smith’s unsolicited advice until his strategy with Endicott and Jones seemed to be getting nowhere. In the summer of 1910, Plant met Smith at his factory. He said that he had had the pleasure of telling Winslow what he thought of him. The two men discussed the situation. Shortly afterwards, Plant called Smith at his 123

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Massachusetts estate with the question: “Do you want to make some money?” Smith must have, since he woke Plant in his room at the Belmont Hotel in New York City by 6:30 the next morning.49 Plant said that he had been meeting with western shoe manufacturers for two days and they wanted control of his patents.

Plant said that he didn’t plan to give them control and he “wanted to play the game the way he had figured to play it” – by selling to the USMC. However, he said: “I can do nothing on the eastern end.

I have broken with Winslow, and Endicott has gone back on me.”

Plant said that he was unable to negotiate the sale of his property and could not meet on a satisfactory footing with those influential in making the decisions. He said he needed Smith’s help. In order to sweeten the deal, Plant instructed Smith to offer the USMC his controlling shares of the Thomas G. Plant Company.50 Nonetheless, Plant was still irascible. Smith asked him about his selling price and Plant snapped back: “Smith, the question of price is my own. What I want you to do is to get in so I can talk with Barbour and get in so I can talk with Herrick, I don’t want you even to mention a money price...You keep your hands off the price, you get these men where I can show them the value of what I have got and I will close the negotiations myself.” Smith convinced Plant to drop his “high horse” demand for a $1 million bond just to examine his machines.

Plant agreed.51 Smith seemed to possess a unique combination of deference and power. He would tolerate such talk from Plant, but could still command enough respect to arrange meetings on the spur of the moment with captains of industry. Undoubtedly these were qualities needed by an industrial “harmonizer.”

Over the next few weeks, Smith re-engaged USMC officers and directors in negotiations with Plant. It was a touchy situation of helping Plant to “save face.” This second round of meetings also collapsed. Plant announced that by August he would have 2000 workers building his shoe machines and that by the New Year he would employ 1000 more.

He also declared that he intended to sell his machines, as opposed to USMC’s lease system. Plant registered his Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company on 30 August 1910. Although run in tandem with the Manufacturers Machine Company, it seemed to have been 124

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more for show. On 8 September 1910, he met with representatives of the Central Trust Company in New York to discuss their investment in the new firm, but these negotiations collapsed under USMC interference, only hours after Plant left their office. A similar collapse of investment took place with City Bank in New York City.52 Despite these financial failures, his bravado and his allies’ diplomacy finally worked. In early September, the parties reached an agreement to examine the Wonder Worker shoe machinery.

On 14 September 1910, Sydney Winslow went to the T. G. Plant factory with his team of experts. At the end of the examination, two days later, Winslow and Endicott met Plant at the Algonquin Club. Plant offered his shares in the company along with the patents.

Winslow didn’t want the stock, but Plant convincingly argued for the factory as a “model operation” and a “showpiece.” He suggested that they could run his factory as a training school for shoe operatives.

Plant refused to sell his patents without the stock. Winslow asked for a figure and a guarantee of its accuracy. Plant estimated the value at $8 million to $8.5 million. “Impossible,” Winslow declared, and the negotiations fell through again.53 The next day, Plant cabled the interested western shoe manufacturers and a St. Louis financier with the option to buy half the Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company stock on “favorable terms” – $1.6 million. They came to Boston to negotiate. Although this “western” dalliance could reflect Plant’s ambivalence, it was probably a pressure tactic against the USMC. While this third meeting with western shoe manufacturers proceeded on 20 September 1910, Plant had Endicott set up another meeting with Winslow at the Puritan Club in Boston.54 At that meeting, Plant was distressed. He confided to one of the USMC men when Winslow was out of the room that: I am sick of all this waiting. Everybody advises me to sell. I have talked with Mr. Whipple, – he advises me to sell. I have talked with Mr. Brandeis, – he advises me to sell. And everybody advises me to sell. I could keep on and make a lot of money, but I prefer to get out of the business and pay my debts and retire on my cash.55 125

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Plant said he would sell his patents and factory stock for $3 million cash and $3 million in USMC stock. He said, however, that he couldn’t talk to Winslow without getting mad. Herrick presented the case to Winslow, who agreed. On 22 September 1910, the USMC issued Plant a $500,000 “binder” on the deal, and, at noontime, the lawyers began to draw up formal papers, working far into the night.56 As they drew up the contract, Plant still had to deal with the western shoe manufacturers. While he closed the deal with the USMC, the westerners toured his machine shops in Lynn and Lawrence. Plant’s offer to them was set to expire at 6:00 p.m. Unbeknownst to them, Plant’s lawyer had already accepted USMC’s check and the agreement of sale was being drawn up. Plant was playing both ends against the middle. The westerners returned to the Touraine Hotel before the deadline and told Plant they could make only an oral agreement for $1.1 million. Plant demanded the additional half million dollars: “… cash on the nail.” They didn’t have it. They also wanted more stock than Plant was willing to offer. He left them at 8 p.m. and went directly to the State Street offices of USMC’s lawyers.57 Plant’s attorney was “in a fair state of nerves” because Plant had not shown up earlier. Winslow and other USMC representatives had been waiting for him. The teams began to hammer out the details of the agreement. Plant had some surprises for them. He revealed financial obligations to inventors, costs of additional merchandise in transit, and outstanding payrolls. He forced the USMC to take over these obligations and proved himself to be a “stiff trader” throughout the night. For their part, the USMC obligated Plant to assign them all inventions in which he might become interested over the next fifteen years – in order to stop him from further involvement in the Shoe Machinery War. The main agreement ran to 85 printed pages, detailing 50 points. Plant and Winslow signed it at four o’clock in the morning on 23 September 1910. As O’Gorman noted: “So ended, for the moment, but not for long the most famous episode in shoe machinery history.”58 Plant was up early the next morning, if he slept at all. He met the western shoe manufacturers at 11 a.m. They told him that they were 126

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ready to pay his $1.6 million demand, but Plant told them that he had already sold “to another interest.” A rumor would develop that Plant had missed his chance to sell to the westerners by only minutes – chance instead of connivance.59 The next day, Plant paid off his machinery personnel and dismissed them. Winslow closed the Thomas G. Plant Company for a “minute examination” of the company’s accounts, assets, and inventory.

Two days later, it resumed business under its old name. Winslow announced that it would continue to operate under its existing management, independent of the USMC. When its management demonstrated their competence, the 60% of stock would be sold to them.60

Letter, Thomas G. Plant to Mary Campbell, 1910.

Courtesy of Robert Lamprey, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

The next week was filled with preparation and signing of papers.

In the midst of all this, Plant’s wife left him because of a long-term infidelity that he had maintained. The effects of the marital problems on his decision to divest himself of his business interests are unknown, but they had to have been significant. Plant bid farewell to his former workers at Christmas 1910, when he distributed $125,000 127

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in newly minted gold coins at the factory – $5 a year for service of four years or more and double for supervisory personnel. Each worker received a letter of appreciation with the money when called to the head office. Gaynor O’Gorman summarized that “no single episode in the history of shoe machinery ever created quite the furor aroused by the rather dramatic circumstances surrounding United’s purchase of (the) T.G. Plant’s interests.”61 Assessment of the Plant-USMC Sale It is difficult to assess the results of the shoe machinery sale. Much frantic exaggeration had elevated people’s expectations to unrealistic levels. The USMC was critical of the Wonder Worker shoe machines.

They were said to infringe on previously held patents as well as to be too light in design and imperfectly engineered. The USMC said that it would have taken years of further invention to get around other patents, as well as better engineering and millions of additional dollars to perfect the machines into a “viable” system. Plant had some excellent inventions, but the USMC saw their real value to be with incorporation into their own machines. Plant had solved many problems for them. When the reconstituted Thomas G. Plant Company began to phase in the new USMC machines in 1912, they discovered that many problems that had existed in the USMC equipment were solved by incorporation of Plant’s innovations.62 In addition, public outrage about the Shoe Machinery War helped shoe manufacturers. For the USMC to enforce the more coercive elements of their lease system under such public light would have been suicidal, so they tried to appease shoe manufacturers. Although Plant himself did not benefit from this begrudging largesse, the industry did. Nonetheless, the polarization that resulted from the battle led to prosecution of the USMC in U.S. District Court under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It is interesting that, while a major part of the testimony in the first two trials concerned Tom Plant and his battle with the USMC, Plant himself did not testify.

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Rumors and articles persisted. Hampton’s Magazine published an article that the USMC considered little more than a morality play about Saint George (Tom Plant) trying to slay the Dragon (USMC) that had been terrorizing the villagers (the shoe manufacturers).

Louis Coolidge of the USMC fought back with an article in the Boston Transcript. The Boston News Bureau published partisan pieces for the USMC. Gaynor O’Gorman sumarized: “The air was full of fight.” Besides numerous battles between the USMC and the smaller independent shoe machinery firms, there was also some large resistance involving the western shoe manufacturers.63 But Tom Plant was out of it.

Who made out best on this whole deal? The $6 million that the USMC paid Plant was considered high, “an appalling sum.”

Although Plant received only half of his original demand, he did get his full asking price with the factory thrown in. Superficially, it seemed that he had lost $120,000 per year, but it was income for which he did not have to work or to venture capital. In return, the USMC settled a problem that would have cost them dearly in litigation and competition.64 Plus, they effectively removed him from the impending anti-trust suit. If Plant had been part of that process, things might have ended very differently for the USMC. Why did Plant sell? He had intended to sell from the start.

His contention with the USMC was about the lease system. Shoe machinery was merely his vehicle for negotiation. However, his contentious spirit appears to have drawn him too far into the conflict to retreat, and so he decided to jettison everything for the right price.

O’Gorman thought that Plant was truly expressing himself when he told Herrick that he was “sick” of everything – waiting, involvement in more contention than he had expected, the failure of other options, and domestic problems. He reported that Plant had labored under incredible strain for a year, working long hours while in the care of physicians and masseurs, that it must have looked pretty good after a hard-fought career to follow the advice of his pal Harry Smith and retire to a life of leisure.65

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S.W. Winslow may have once snubbed him as Plant thought and may even have out-witted him as others thought, but he never out-did Plant’s spectacular.66 Saint George and Dragon parted and went their own ways.

Summary The aftershocks of the Shoe Machinery War would continue in the courts and people’s imaginations for half a century. Opponents claimed that Plant’s line of shoe machinery was developed in the antiquated manner of the 19th century – when machines were fabricated for a particular factory and then refined for a larger market – and that the construction was not equal to his design.67 Although the fabrication and implementation of his inventions were carried out in a somewhat primitive manner, Plant used scientific techniques of design, patent investigation and competition. This was a product of not only industry in transition, but the necessities of competition – with the USMC and their commercial allies. USMC’s success had come about from the combined genius of many inventors and much capital over a fifty year period, whereas Plant assembled a rival shoe machinery system in less than five years.

Plant and others’ efforts broke the stereotype of French North American docility. Louis Goddu, Ernest Caron, Louis Côté and Michel Brunet had also become successful in the shoe industry on both sides of the Canadian and American border. Brunet’s story is especially dramatic and parallels Plant’s. In the first decade of the 20th century, Michel Brunet established a shoe factory and took over the Duplessis Independent Shoe Machinery Company in Québec City.

The USMC sued Brunet for $10,000 for breach of contract, accusing him of running other shoe machinery alongside their machines.

Brunet demanded a jury trial, used the monopolistic business practices of the USMC as a defense, and brought nationalism to his side by stating that the USMC was a foreign firm and could not prosecute him in Canada. The jury ruled in his favor, as did the 130

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Superior Court in 1906, and the Court of Appeals in 1907. However, the British Privy Council, the last court of appeal for Canadian cases in 1910, reversed these decisions, awarded a breach of contract to the USMC, and recommended legislative remedy for the issues of false business practices and monopoly.68 Brunet’s faction had also requested the Canadian prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, to amend the criminal code to limit USMC’s monopoly. In response, the government introduced the Combines Investigation Act in 1910. Plant’s ally, Charles Jones, joined their efforts across the border. He colluded with Brunet’s colleague, Ernest Caron of the Canadian General & Shoe Machinery Company in Lévis, Québec. The investigations board agreed that a monopolistic situation did exist, but they referred the case back to the plaintiff – USMC – to remedy, which they did not. The USMC of Canada was the only company against whom this act was ever implemented.69 Brunet, Plant and their colleagues employed methods of operation that demonstrate a very sophisticated understanding to the capitalist system at a time when French North Americans were not popularly noted for such sophistication by Yankees or English Canadians. Their efforts reflect common experience on both sides of the border, in respect to a growing multinational corporation, and reflect an ability to try to mold the world to their ambition and fight against what they considered to be injustice.

Plant developed a secondary agenda in the course of the Shoe Machinery War. What began as a plan for increased profits, mingled with animosity towards monopoly, then led to elaborate efforts at machine invention and coercion. Plant’s mustering of government and public support was matched by USMC’s financial skullduggery.

The fight became entangled with Plant’s ego, as he developed a “great anger at not having his inventions appreciated,” which seemed especially directed at the USMC president.70 When things did not go quite according to plan, Plant’s sharpened social aspirations seem to have made him decide to totally escape the sordid world of manufacturing and gross industrial effort.

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evidently these profits were not sufficient. His personal ambition was to rise above the men who had antagonized him. His exit then had to be done at maximum profit, and he evolved an elaborate plan of divestiture. This meant that he had to jettison the corporate empire that had moved him into the moyenne bourgeoisie in the first place.

In the end, he had to settle for less than for what he had hoped, but he could then use his settlement to become a financier and a grand bourgeois.

Endnotes 1 One of the commentators about Plant was the Boston News Bureau. Founded in 1887, it issued financial bulletins to banks, brokers and businesses, as well as placed advertisements for clients. The Bureau was said to be “related by marriage” to the USMC, because they ran publicity campaigns for them. Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife.” Boston News Bureau, “Popular Illusions”: 131.

The Boston Budget & Beacon, 27 July 1907. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Boston Directory: (1894): 1972; (1908): 2740. O’Gorman: 189, 242, 276. Wile.

2 O’Gorman: 296.

3 The USMC praise for Plant was predictable since their machinery profits depended on manufacturers’ profits. Plant’s factory was one of the more profitable.

O’Gorman: 298.

4 Segal, “The Machine Shop”: 44–49. Marcus & Segal: 73. Thomson: 49–72, 163.

5 Thomson: 163.

6 Thomson: 160–163, 214–215, 228–231. Smithsonian Institution: 1.

7 At the turn of the 20th century, U.S. industry was undergoing consolidation.

Advocates said consolidation reduced cut-throat competition, promoted systematic development, and allowed research and development by firms large enough to afford it. The companies that formed the USMC were Goodyear, McKay Shoe Machinery, Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machine, Eppler Welt Machine, and Davey Pegging Machine. It was part of a great wave of mergers between 1895 and 1904. Before the merger, competition allowed shoe-manufacturers to purchase machines at lower prices: eight companies had made lasting machines, three made welt-sewing and sole-stitching machines, three made heeling machines, and five made metallic fastening machines. Afterwards, all these companies went out of existence, and the USMC became the nation’s largest manufacturer of shoe machinery. The USMC had begun with $18 million of watered stock. Besides

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Tom Plant and the American Dream machinery, they also supplied thread, tacks, wire, nails, and blacking. They required shoe manufacturers to buy iron shoe nails for use on their machines for 21¢ per pound – the nails cost only 5¢ per pound on the open market. The Panic of 1907 further enhanced the position of the USMC. They had factories in Frankfort (Germany), Paris (France), Leicester (England), and Montréal (Québec). Because of British shoe-makers’ assertiveness and competition from British independent shoe machinery manufacturers, the USMC was forced to revise their lease system in the United Kingdom. Royalties for shoes made on USMC machines brought them almost 6% of the entire capital invested by shoe manufacturers. Welliver: 327–332, 334, 336. Smithsonian Institution: 1. Thomson: 228–231. Ralph Nelson: 33–105, 161–162. Whipple.

8 Under the USMC system, prompt royalty payment gave shoe manufacturers a 50% reduction, which was a considerable savings. While the original lease system had permitted a shoe-making company to begin business with a modest investment, it had also allowed them a choice between high-cost purchase and lowcost lease. A shoe manufacturer could use machines from a variety of companies, some leased and some bought. While many complained about monopolization, the USMC replied that competition existed, as did a second-hand market, and that independent shoe machinery houses were reported to be doing well. A leasing system was also used in the film industry, as with the Motion Pictures Patent Company in 1908. Smithsonian Institution: 1. Marcus & Segal: 215. U.S. Justice Department, District Court, U.S. v. United Shoe Machine Co., 227 F 507, D.C. MO, 8 November 1915. O’Gorman: 130. New York Times, “Trust Bought Out

by Rival,” 30 May 1913; “Trust Closed 42 Plants,” 28 May 1913; “Facts about the Situation in the Shoe Industry.” Welliver: 329–331, 337. Whipple.

9 Tessier’s equipment came from the Duplessis Shoe Machinery Company in Québec. Welliver: 329–331.

10 There was no time limit between patenting and production of an invention.

Patent applications could be kept alive by amendment. The sale of a patent to the USMC did not mean a fortune in royalties for the inventor. The patent could be stored forever. There were allegations that the U.S. Patent Office was aiding monopoly capitalism. When a patent expired, the lease system took over. The lease said that an attachment to a machine extended the entire machine’s lease. Since machines were continuously “improved,” this meant almost a continuous lease.

Welliver: 330, 333–334, 337.

11 Welliver: 332–333, 336, 338.

12 Plant also considered establishing his own tannery and eliminating profits paid to leather producers, but Massachusetts law had prohibited shoemakers from becoming tanners, and vice-versa, for almost 300 years. O’Gorman: 189.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 13 Tom Plant told James Darragh, a director of the Standard Shoe Machinery Company of New York, that he would have to replace his Standard machines with those of the USMC because of that company’s “annoyance.” New York Times, “Shoe Machinery Company Sues.” James Darragh, “Says Shoe Co. Used Pressure,” Boston Herald, 13 June 1911. U.S. Justice Department, Circuit Court, Massachusetts, Nº 1113: 163–166.

14 I estimate Plant’s royalty payments at his maximum production of 17,000 shoes per day multiplied by 2¢ per pair. For its part, the USMC saw it illogical that Plant would fight a system under which he had grown rich, especially since, as O’Gorman commented, Plant had “…otherwise seemed willing to pay for what he got. It always had galled his dissenting spirit.” Plant also wanted shoe machines to be evaluated as an asset in financial transactions, something that could only be done if the machines were owned by a shoe manufacturer. This was not a view warmly endorsed by bankers at this time. The USMC saw machinery sales as “illogical,” since they had made a fortune through the lease system. Plant’s sales background would likewise influence him to prefer the sale of equipment. William McGaffeee in U.S. Justice Department, US v. USMC, District Court, Missouri, Volume 24: 10441–10442. New York Times, “Facts about the Situation in the Shoe Industry.” O’Gorman: 191–192, 285, 299, 320. Plant, “Excerpt From Testimony…”.

Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer.” Whipple.

15 Plant collaborated with machine shops in Lynn, Boston, Lawrence, Worcester, Fitchburg, and Woonsocket. Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant.

O’Gorman: 294, 412. Harry Smith in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 4067.

16 Potential rivals to the USMC included the Boylston Manufacturing Company, the Haverhill Shoe Machinery Company, the R.H. Long Machinery Company, the Duplessis Shoe Machinery Company, the Keighly Company, and the Canadian General & Shoe Machinery Company. Selz. O’Gorman: 277, 294, 299. Sidney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 6: 3386.

17 The Manufacturers Machine Company seems to have been a holding company used by Plant and his associates. It filed its last annual report in New Jersey in 1908. Since Plant assigned patents to it for three machines in 1908 and 1910, the company must have remained in business and been associated with his Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company. His corporate involvement in New Jersey was part of a national trend in the early 20th century: “New Jersey did have favorable incorporation laws and firms from all over the U.S. filed for incorporation.” The Gaston family had been founding sponsors of the International Trust Company, and Plant’s connections with that family perhaps led to his becoming a director in it. This led O’Gorman to editorialize that Plant “was not quite the babe lost

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Tom Plant and the American Dream in the banking woods that he was later pictured.” Burnett. O’Gorman: 242.

Sobel & Raimo: 712. Welliver: 328. Sidney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 6: 3145; Robert Herrick, Volume 7: 3559–3564. U.S. Commerce Department, Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, 1907–1910. New Jersey, State Department, Record Card, Manufacturers Machine Company.

18 In September 1905, a rumor circulated that Boylston Manufacturing had formed a shoe machinery alliance with Duplessis Shoe Machinery, Timothy Bresnahan, and Tom Plant. The Boylston Manufacturing Company had just been organized in New Jersey and was touted as a major challenge to the USMC. The firm maintained a plant and offices in Boston, and was reportedly connected to Standard Oil. Plant was cited as a promoter of it and Charles Schwab of Bethlehem Steel as having an interest in the new alliance. This alliance never materialized.

USMC historian Gaynor O’Gorman referred to Plant’s allies as the “Associated Group” or the “Association.” It was an informal name inconsistently used and could merely indicate shifting alliances. Plant became primarily allied to the Stanley Manufacturing Company of Lawrence, the Bresnahan Shoe Machinery Company of Lynn, and C.P. Stanbon & Company of Lynn. In addition, he worked with the Sewing Machines Supplies Company of Boston, the Boston Machine Works Company of Lynn, the W.J. Young Machinery Company of Lynn, and the Peerless Machinery Company of Boston. Their fate indicates their degree of connection to Plant: The USMC bought Stanley Manufacturing, Bresnahan Shoe Machinery and C.P. Stanbon, indicating a close linkage. The others, however, remained independent. Stanley Manufacturing was said to be the oldest and, except for the USMC, the most complete shoe-machinery company in the world.

Frank Forrester Stanley (1850–1921) had been an associate of Gordon McKay and manufactured shoe-sewing machines, labeling and bottle-filling machinery, and gasoline engines. Stanley tried to sell out to the USMC when they formed in 1899, but they refused. Plant associated himself with Stanley and, on 15 June 1910, leased his shoe machinery property and equipment for five years, along with a commitment to buy. Since Stanley built some USMC machines and parts, this ironically made Plant a source for some of the USMC equipment. The Stanley account books mention transactions with Tom Plant and a special “Plant Journal,” but I have not been able to locate the journal. Frank Forrester Stanley is known as a developer of the “Stanley steamer” but is not to be confused with Frank Edgar Stanley, one of the other developers. In 1905, Charles Stanbon gave the Manufacturer’s Machine Company an option to buy, in return for a bond. When the option lapsed, it was reassigned to Plant and extended. O’Gorman: 253, 330– 334, 339, 359. Stanley Manufacturing Company. Kelly Williams. Segal.

19 Plant also purchased patents for shoe-making mechanisms and then had them reconfigured into larger machines, which he then repatented and merged with an

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A Castle in the Clouds: impressive list of foreign and domestic patent holdings. He had no patents in his name prior to 1907. Therefore, it would seem that this personal commitment to invention signaled a new intensity to challenge or coerce the USMC. Between 1907 and 1910, 35 patents were assigned to the T.G. Plant Company by independent inventors; 1 in 1907, 8 in 1908, 9 in 1909, and 17 in 1910. Between 1909 and 1910, Plant himself patented 46 inventions, 10 in 1909 and 36 in 1910. Harrie Ballard in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 8: 4895–4896. U.S. Commerce Department, Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, 1859–1910. O’Gorman: 294. Hains.

20 Emery.

21 The welt was a special piece of leather that fit between the upper and the inner sole on one side and the outer sole on the other. This savings estimate is based on Plant’s maximum production of 17,000 pairs of shoes per day. O’Gorman: 322–323.

22 Born in Portland, Maine, Fred Emery became a lawyer in 1893 and worked for a Boston firm that specialized in patent law. The fact that Emery worked as patent counsel for the T.G. Plant Company in 1901 indicates that Plant had early thought about shoe machinery production. Emery’s association with Plant became a springboard to success. He started his own law firm in 1902 and became president of the Boston Patent Law Association. Sherman Whipple also served Plant in other cases and shared social interests. William Gaston’s father had been governor of Massachusetts in 1875 and his law firm included a member of the powerful Saltonstall family. Gaston was strongly disposed towards labor rights and industrial harmony. He worked as a Democratic politician and, like Whipple, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate against Henry Cabot Lodge. Boston Evening Transcript, “Sherman L. Whipple Dies.” New York Times, “F.L. Emery Dead.”

James T. White & Company: Volume 26: 82–83.

23 It is possible that Brandeis had worked with Plant in opposition to the New Haven Railroad’s attempted take-over of the Boston & Maine Railroad. Brandeis was labeled a “radical” by his corporate friends. President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916, under considerable controversy, especially because of his association with, and then against, the USMC. Becoming a liberal ally of Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, he resigned from the court in 1939. New York Times, “Louis D. Brandeis, Retired Justice, Dies At Capital,” 6 October 1941. Urofsky: 310–317. Brandeis.

24 Emery. Hains.

25 The American House was a large and well-known hotel at 56 Hanover Street. It was built in 1835, rebuilt in 1851, and was the first hotel to introduce a passenger elevator in Boston. Its clientele largely consisted of businessmen in the shoe and leather industry, who made the hotel their headquarters, as well as western and southern merchants. O’Gorman: 261. Ellis: 10.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 26 Emery. Hains.

27 William McGaffeee in U.S. Justice Department, U.S. vs. USMC, District Court, Missouri, Volume 24: 10428–10430, 10442. Jamaica Plain News, “A Prosperous Local Industry.”

28 Plant’s inventors included Perley Glass, John Heys, and Charles Stanbon.

O’Gorman: 294, 301.

29 O’Gorman, 294–295.

30 Plant did make other partial payments to the USMC. The T.G. Plant Company was charged $400,000 for the installation of the Wonder Worker shoe machinery.

New York Times, “Shoe Machinery Company Sues.” O’Gorman: 301, 325.

Lovington: 17.

31 O’Gorman: 302, 310.

32 Charles Jones in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. vs. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 2: 759–768. Massachusetts, Legislature, Chapter 469.

33 Charles Jones (1855–1933) graduated from Dartmouth College and entered the footwear industry in 1871, becoming president of the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, as well as a director of the New England Shoe & Leather Association and of the National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association. Henry Endicott (1853–1920) began as a plumber’s apprentice and then a clerk in the Boston leather trade. A sheepskin merchant in 1875, he bought a failing shoemaking firm in New York and went into partnership with George Johnson. Their business grew into the huge Endicott-Johnson Corporation, a manufacturer of men’s shoes and a major advocate of welfare capitalism. Endicott’s facilities were non-union and never struck. Like Jones, he became an officer in the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, serving as its treasurer. A skilled labor-management mediator and public negotiator, he went into government service during World War I. James T. White & Company, Volume 19: 294–295. O’Gorman: 299–300.

Plant, “Excerpt From Testimony of Mr. Plant…”: 1-2. Jones & Reed: 115. New York Times, “Charles H. Jones,” 5 January 1933. Emery. Hains. Snow. Gaston, Snow & Saltonstall. Gifford. Whipple.

34 Henry Endicott had arranged the USMC purchase of the Eppler Welt Machine Company in 1899. O’Gorman: 299–300. Boston News Bureau: 132. T.G. Plant Company, draft notes.

35 O’Gorman: 299-300. Boston News Bureau: 132. Ferland, “‘Not for Sale’”: 59–82.

Whipple.

36 Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company. O’Gorman: 303, 331–333.

37 The shoe-flexing machine and other of Plant’s advertisements are at the Colburn Shoe Store in Belfast, Maine – the oldest operating shoe store in the United States.

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A Castle in the Clouds: Brian Horne, the owner, allowed me to study and document the artifacts. United Shoe Machinery Company.

38 Welliver: 339.

39 The Wonder Worker shoe machines broke ⅔ more lasts per week – 210 – than the USMC machinery. This was caused by a pressure regulation problem on the bed-lasting, sole-laying, and nailing machines. Since lasts cost $1.10 a pair, this cost $231 a week on lasts alone, in addition to loss of time in having to get odd-size lasts made. The T.G. Plant Company paid 7% interest on preferred stock and 6% on common stock. William McGaffee in U.S. Justice Department, U.S. vs. USMC, District Court, Missouri, Volume 24: 10430–10433, 10443, 10446, 10448. Sidney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, U.S. District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v.

USMC, Nº 301, Volume 6: 3142.

40 The toe-lasters first complained that the Wonder Worker machines produced “high toes,” which required extra work to fix. Others in the lasting crew organized shortly afterwards and likewise received an increase. The USMC denied that they had hired the three men to spy and cause trouble at the T.G. Plant Company in late May and early June 1910. They claimed that the three workers’ had been involved in an extortion scheme. However, the USMC witnesses in the court case were all working for the T.G. Plant Company, which was owned by the USMC at that time.

Both sets of testimony could have been self-serving and influenced. I believe that there was some truth to the allegations, but not to the extent that the conspirators claimed. The story went that Eddie Johnson, an agent of the USMC, sent Frank Morrison to see Charles Willson, the general manager of the USMC. Morrison then recruited Abram Sochat and Charles Ross to help him. All three were lastingworkers from the T.G. Plant Company, but Ross had been discharged. Ross kept the books. The men were promised their expenses, $2000 each, and jobs. They focused on organizing Plant’s 300–400 lasters around the issue of decreased production and wages caused by the installation of the Wonder Worker machines. Meetings of fifteen to fifty men were held in an Armenian worker’s house in Parker Street, near the factory. The organizers went around to T.G. Plant Company employees’ houses and took a group of workers to the seaside, at Revere, on a spree. They said that they had paid some workers $15 to join their efforts and had managed to organize 250–300 members. They talked of joining the United Shoe Workers of America, but then opted for an independent union. The three men said that they met with Willson up to two to three times a week for two months. At one point, they brought a toe-lasting worker to Lynn where he was debriefed by USMC agents and paid three-dollars. At the end, Willson requested that all paperwork relating to the matter be given to him or destroyed. Although Ross and Sochat subsequently got training, and Ross got a job through the USMC, they said that they had spent $1500 of their own savings and received no money. I have not investigated their state suit to recover their money. William McGaffee in U.S. Justice Department,

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Tom Plant and the American Dream U.S. vs. USMC, District Court, Missouri, Volume 24: 10433; Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC – Volume 4: Frank Morrison (1699–1714), Charles Ross (1714–1731), Abram Sochat (1731–1743); Volume 7: Cross Johnson (4032–4036); Benjamin Epstein (4036–4039), Arthur Crouch (4039–4042), Charles Connor (4042–4045), Samuel Pearlman (4045–4048), Joseph Beaudreau (4048–4050), Charles Weidman (4050–4053), Harry Johnson (4053–4057); Volume 8: Hampars Harpootlian (4588–4592), Frank Morrison (4592–4593), Peter Gostanian (4593–4594), Asardu Astoorian, 4594–4595.

41 Sydney Winslow (1854–1917) came from Cape Cod; he learned shoe-making in his father’s rudimentary factory and made his first entrepreneurial money in reorganizing the gas company in Beverly, Massachusetts. Said to have a narrow but penetrating vision, he was “among the most direct of men.” First involved with McKay’s shoe machinery, he brought together the United Shoe Machinery Company in 1899. O’Gorman doubted that Winslow had snubbed Plant, as Winslow was known for being unpretentious. He speculated that, although Plant had emotional problems at this time, his opening attack was a ploy. He wondered how “mild-spoken” Endicott ever got the meeting back together. “Sidney Wilmot Winslow,” Quarter Century Club News (Beverly: United Shoe Machinery Corporation, Spring 1963): 3–4. O’Gorman: 305–306. Welliver: 326–327.

42 The Parker House was a large and famous hotel built in Boston in 1855 on School and Tremont Street. An eight-story building, it was faced in marble, had a chateau roof, and was known for its dining facilities, which catered to private clubs, businessmen, and politicians. Ellis: 301–303. Damrell: 446. O’Gorman: 306–308.

43 Welliver: 327.

44 O’Gorman: 308.

45 Plant had been advised by independent counsel that the lease system employed by the USMC was an illegal restraint of trade and that his contract could be broken with impunity. The USMC attempted to have this argument stricken as defective. Plant’s lawyers argued that “monopoly” was the sole issue and that the USMC request to strike his argument was a tactic to wear Plant out. Justice Rugg denied USMC’s motion to strike it. Counsel also guaranteed Plant that his patents on the Wonder Worker shoe machinery were free and clear of any potential charge of infringement. Nonetheless, the USMC made a total of 535 claims of patent infringement against Plant. Their final tally counted 35 infringements by Plant’s patents, 1 of Bresnahan’s and 1 of Keighly’s machines against 96 patents and 3 applications of the USMC. These estimates count each claim only once and disregard multiple claims. USMC’s final estimate found Plant’s patents infringed 132 USMC patents for a total of 708 claims. The USMC eventually estimated that they had infringed on over 50 of Plant’s patents of commercial or experimental machines. Other sources claimed less than a dozen serious patent infringements

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A Castle in the Clouds: against Plant. Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant: 42. Shoe & Leather Reporter, “Is USMC an Illegal Trust & Monopoly?” 14 July 1910: 24–25. New York Times, “Shoe Machinery Company Sues.” Boston News Bureau, “Popular Illusions”: 131. O’Gorman: 311, 313–314, 322.

46 New York Times, “Facts about the Situation in the Shoe Industry.” O’Gorman: 285, 308–310.

47 Brandeis. Robert Herrick in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 3552–3553, 3559-64. Welliver: 338–339. O’Gorman: 310.

48 Harry Smith was born 1865 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His grandfather was a cotton millwright who had emigrated from England in the early 19th century, worked in the Rhode Island cotton industry, and relocated to the Worcester area of Massachusetts, where he set up his own cotton mills. Both he and his son married into well-to-do Yankee families and engaged in the textile industry. The family wealth allowed Harry Smith to study design and weaving, as well as to establish his own cotton mills. However, a series of reverses caused his Wachusett’s Mills in Worcester to fail after eighteen years, wiping out his fortune and losing his family investments. Between 1897 and 1899, Smith pioneered labor-saving and cotton mill inventions. The profits allowed him to pay back his creditors and rebuild his fortune. However, they also led Smith into the legal world of patent infringement.

In resolving his own litigations, Smith discovered that he had a talent for resolving industrial conflict. He then embarked on a career as an industrial negotiator, bringing together “opposing interests for their mutual benefit,” which at the turn of the century was considered “a unique profession in the world of business, that of a harmonizer.” Smith and Plant both used patent attorney Robert Hains. Harry Smith in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 4058–4059, 4064. Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant, Appeal: 92. O’Gorman, 311–312. Nutt: 283–284.

49 This was the first business engagement between Plant and Smith. Up to this time, their connection had been of an informal and friendly nature. The Belmont Hotel had been erected in 1906 at the “Heart of the World” on the corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue in New York City. It was, at this time, the tallest hotel in the world, connected by underground tunnels to Grand Central Station, and frequented by travelers. Harry Smith in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 4060. Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant, Appeal, 92–94. O’Gorman: 312. Rider: 286. Stokes: 610.

Robert Palmer: 51.

50 Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant, Appeal, 94, 96, 103–104.

O’Gorman: 312–313. Harry Smith in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 4061.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 51 Massachusetts, Supreme Court, Smith v. Plant, Appeal: 94. O’Gorman: 312–313.

52 Plant’s negotiations with the Central Trust Company were said to have been a maneuver to further coerce the USMC. It was also said that Central Trust only wanted to broker a sale and even offered such a deal to the USMC. Plant used James Hutchinson as an intermediary in the meeting with Central Trust, much as he had used Harry Smith in the previous negotiations with the USMC. Plant refused to pay Hutchinson his fee, and Hutchinson took the case to court and won a $150,000 settlement. The deal with City Bank also involved a major leather merchant. Like the Manufacturers Machine Company, the Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company was headquartered in Montclair, New Jersey, and its officers included men associated with the Montclair Trust Company. The firm was voided on 26 January 1915. Most of Plant’s patents were assigned to the Manufacturers Machine Company. The Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company seems to have been for show or used for administrative purposes. A thorough investigation of all of Plant’s patents and their routes of assignment would go far in elucidating the details of his development of a rival shoe machinery company. New York Times, “Facts About the Situation in the Shoe Industry.” New Jersey: Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Supreme Court, Hutchinson: 148–158.

Robert Herrick in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v.

USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 3559–3564.

53 Robert Herrick in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 3537. O’Gorman: 315.

54 O’Gorman reported on Plant’s meeting with the westerners. The delegation included Jackson Johnson of the Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company in St. Louis and Milton Florsheim. Florsheim had worked as a jobber with his father’s firm – Greensfelder, Florsheim & Company, which specialized in trade in the lumber and mining districts of Minnesota and Wisconsin. In 1892, he founded the Florsheim Shoe Company in Chicago. As had Plant, Florsheim developed a brand name (in 1896) and a unique marketing structure, albeit on a smaller scale.

Accompanying Johnson and Florsheim were James Campbell, president of the North American Company (a conglomerate of three St. Louis public utilities), and Festus Wade, president of the Mercantile Trust Company of St. Louis. O’Gorman identified three others only by their last names – Peters, Rand, and Selz. This probably referred to Frank Rand of the Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company in St. Louis; Henry Peters of the Peters Shoe Company in St. Louis; and E.F. “Buck” Selz of Selz, Schwab & Company in Chicago. O’Gorman: 315–317. Riley: 49, 50.

Florsheim Shoe Company. Pucin. Milton Florsheim in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 2: 945, 959–960.

55 Robert Herrick, in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 3538–3539.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 56 Winslow thought that Plant would not directly make a proposition to him for fear of being quoted and held to it (as happened with Williams and Clark twenty years before). Plant received $1.5 million of USMC stock in the equivalent at par – $25. This stock was selling for twice par and was worth $3 million at market value.

On 26 September 1910, the USMC authorized the sale of 60,000 shares of common stock at $50 per share in order to raise the money for Plant’s buy-out. Sydney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 1: 3131; Robert Herrick, Volume 7: 3538–3539. O’Gorman: 316– 320, 326.

57 An account reported that Plant had assured Winslow two days earlier that his offer was such that the westerners would not accept. Another version states that the western shoe manufacturers were looking for “such a bargain as would have given them a financial advantage and have harnessed Mr. Plant.” The Hotel Touraine was an elegant brick and limestone structure opened in 1897 on Boston Common. It was known for its library for guests, who included U.S. presidents.

Boston News Bureau, “Popular Illusions”: 133. O’Gorman: 317. The Boston Globe, Question & Answers, 16 January 1978; “Touraine bought for $1.2 million,” 20 July 1978. Harry Smith in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 4068.

58 Plant’s allies did well as a result of the contract. Maurice Bresnahan, his son and business partner went to work for the USMC. John Heys became superintendent of the huge USMC Beverly factory in 1912. Charles Stanbon’s later involvement with the western shoe manufacturers was a power-play similar to Plant’s tactics; it worked, and the USMC bought him out. Frank Stanley became trustee of Gordon McKay’s estate. William Ratcliffe became president of the T.G. Plant Company.

The firm kept the Wonder Worker machines, but paid back fees lost to the USMC during the Shoe Machinery War. In 1912, the reconfigured T.G. Plant Company phased in new USMC machines, ones incorporating Plant’s design elements. In 1916, the USMC sold its 60% of stock that they had bought from Tom Plant back to the company management as promised. The T.G. Plant Company produced Queen Quality and Dorothy Dodd shoes through the 1920s but in a reduced way.

The firm was bought by the International Shoe Company in 1931, as described in the following endnote. O’Gorman: 317–318, 320–321, 325, 330–331. Sidney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 6: 3426–3427; Robert Herrick, Volume 7: 3542–3543.

59 O’Gorman was surprised that the western shoe manufacturers would have problems raising $500,000. A day later, they demonstrated the ability to raise more money for a deal with the USMC. O’Gorman suspects that they did not want to buy into the Wonder Worker Company under Plant’s terms and were stalling. The next day, Jackson Johnson and Milton Florsheim visited Sydney Winslow at the Hotel Touraine. They told him they could pay Plant cash for his USMC stock and

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Tom Plant and the American Dream then hold it for ten years, making them inclined to favor the USMC. Winslow deferred, still refusing to cut a deal for “special” customers. Florsheim said that, as large customers, they wanted preferential treatment; if it wasn’t forthcoming, “there would be trouble.” Florsheim made the same threat as had Plant, but without the leverage of shoe machinery patents. Winslow dismissed them. In November 1910, the St. Louis shoe firms had their most prosperous year. Several firms merged, beginning with Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company and Peters Shoe Company in 1911. This merger resulted in combined profits of $20 million, and their International Shoe Company (Interco) became the largest shoe manufacturer in the United States by 1923. As their success in production grew, their opposition to the USMC faded. In 1931, they bought the T.G. Plant Company and its trademarks of Queen Quality and Dorothy Dodd, which were then produced

by Interco’s Vitality Shoe in Illinois. W.J. Banks (1907–1995), an Interco officer, reported that the two brands were considered “top of the line” by his firm; his wife wore Queen Quality and found them very comfortable. Interco transferred its registration for the T.G. Plant Company from Massachusetts to Delaware in 1968 and dissolved it in 1969. New York Times, “New Shoe Trade Fight: Westerners Said to Plan Contest with USMC,” 25 October 1910. International Shoe Company: 30, 32. St. Louis Stock Exchange: 5, 9. Wikipedia: Furniture Brands International; Heritage Home Group. Miller. O’Gorman: 319–321, 325, 327, 330–331. Kelly Williams. Sue Coulbourn, Division of Corporations, Department of State, Dover, Delaware, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Orono, Maine, 1 February 1993: Certificate of Dissolution of Thomas G. Plant Corporation (1969). Banks.

60 Retention of an outdated company name, as for the Thomas G. Plant Company after its sale, was not unusual. Recognizable trademarks and corporate names had become a vital part of industrial production. Plant’s experience with trademarks, itself, had proven the value of recognized names. Although the massive T.G. Plant Company building was converted into store fronts and studios after the firm’s sale in 1931, it was still locally called the “Plant Shoe Factory.” In 1976, it burned to the ground in the largest single building fire in Boston’s history. Local people scavenged the ruins. A postal carrier loaded a truck with bricks and built a fireplace at his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. When I visited Jamaica Plain in 1992, all that remained of the factory was a huge fenced-off area of broken stone and brick dominated by a massive brick smokestack. Goodspeed’s Bookshop. Boston City Police. Marx, “An Unforgettable Night”: 1. The Boston Globe, “Fire Destroys Jamaica Plain Artists’ Center,” 2 February 1976, Morning Edition; “Sprinklers Shut Before $1m Hub Blaze, Says Official,” 2 February 1976, Evening Edition. Robert Anglin, “Sprinklers were off in Jamaica Plain Fire,” Boston Globe, 3 February 1976.

Leslie Seldin, “Fire destroys JP “Factory,” Jamaica Plain Citizen, 5 February 1976.

61 Employees received from $25 to $155, which was a personal gift from Plant.

Plant sat in his office while his secretary, Alfred Handley, distributed the letters

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A Castle in the Clouds: and money to 600 workers called to the office one by one. For example, one of Plant’s secretaries, Mary Campbell, received $30, showing that she had worked for him for six years. A newspaper account reported that a $50,000 dispersal by the company to the workers would follow, based on work quality, orderliness, and cleanliness. Lamprey. Thomas Plant, Letter to Mary Campbell. O’Gorman: 296, 318, 325. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Libel for Divorce. ”Plant, Retiring, Showers Money on his Workers,” unidentified newspaper clipping, circa 1910.

62 The Wonder Worker system had run in the Plant factory from 1 May to 23 September 1910. The USMC considered this too brief a time to work any bugs out of a machine, let alone a whole system, and then only in one factory and on one class of shoes. Although the factory was putting out 20,000 pairs of his name-brand shoes a day on the Wonder Worker system, William McGaffeee, vice president, general manager and director of the T.G. Plant Company, reported that their profits had been cut in half for the five months that the Wonder Worker system was running, as a result of difficulty in adapting the system. Nonetheless, there were many factors besides productivity involved. It later came out in the Smith v. Plant trial that Plant had paid $3.6 million for his machinery and therefore lost $1.1 million on the USMC deal. The USMC paid $2.5 million for 485 U.S. and foreign patents, as well as for 168 pending patent applications. They made their money back on the Wonder Worker welter – immediately adapting the invention to their machines. Winslow said that the welter innovations alone were worth more than all the others put together. USMC experts recommended adoption of 19 Wonder Worker machines, rejection of 44, and experimentation with 14. O’Gorman tried to counteract the accusation that the USMC restrained trade by saying that Tom Plant had been able to assemble a line of shoe machinery for such a low cost. Between 1911 and 1916, Plant transferred eighteen inventions to the USMC: one in 1911, six in 1912, one in 1913, six in 1914, three in 1915, and one in 1916. O’Gorman claimed that, by the time Plant had assembled his patents and machines, he was clear in his intent to sell out to the USMC for a lot of money and “have done with it.” Plant “was a man in a hurry to sell out and didn’t wait to find out what his machinery would really do.” From that point on, it would appear that his tactics demonstrated his desire to exact the highest possible price from the USMC. Plant never sold or leased his machines, except those in his own factory. O’Gorman: 295–296, 300–301, 323, 412, 432. U.S. Commerce Department, Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, 1907–1916. William McGaffee in U.S. Justice Department, U.S. vs. USMC, District Court, Missouri, Volume 24: 10434, 10445. Whipple.

63 The Boston News Bureau article favored the USMC. O’Gorman denied some of the more prominent rumors: the USMC paid Plant $10 million; they cut off Plant’s line of credit with New York and Boston banks; a St. Louis financier named

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Campbell acting for certain western manufacturers acquired Plant’s notes and betrayed him by selling them to the USMC; Plant was unable to meet $1.5 million in notes that were said to be due on 1 October 1910. Although Plant did owe a lot of money, O’Gorman thought Plant probably would have had no problem raising the money if this deadline was true. Plant had not borrowed any money since June 1910 and had claimed access to $10 million backing of New York capital for his Wonder Worker system and factory, in addition to his personal backing.

A number of these allegations have been presented as facts to the present day, as in Melvin Urofsky’s biography of Louis Brandeis, where he repeats the story that USMC forced Plant to the wall financially. O’Gorman: 324–327, 331. Boston News Bureau, “Popular Illusions” Urofsky: 314. Welliver.

64 Winslow valued the USMC stock traded to Plant at $3.5 million. Plant’s own stocks had paid dividends of $420,000 a year, compared to an estimated $300,000 a year from his new USMC stock. O’Gorman: 296, 321.

65 O’Gorman: 323–324, 412.

66 O’Gorman: 326.

67 Sidney Winslow in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 6: 3143.

68 Ferland, “Not for Sale”: 64–66. Green: 421.

69 Jones met with Caron in Québec in 1911. Charles Jones in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 2: 806–808. Ferland, “Not for Sale”: 64–66. Caron.

70 Robert Herrick in U.S. Justice Department, District Court, Massachusetts, U.S. v. USMC, Nº 301, Volume 7: 3538, 3552, 3554.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, looking north, Ossipee Mountains upper center right George H. Walker & Company, 1903.

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Chapter VI – Transitions Plant’s life went through a number of significant changes after his settlement with the USMC. He traveled overseas, divorced, and became a political aspirant. The transition wasn’t easy. Three lawsuits followed Tom Plant into his retirement. One surrounded his marriage; the others resulted from the Shoe Machinery War. From 1910 to 1914, these cases dragged through the courts and created a sense of uneasy anticipation. However, he recovered, “put his house in order,” and entered a very active retirement.

Lost Commissions, Divorce & Litigation Harry Smith and James Hutchinson went to the Massachusetts Superior Court to collect commissions relative to the shoe machinery sale. Plant had refused to pay both of them. Smith claimed money for his negotiation with the USMC and Hutchinson for his work with the Central Trust Company.

In 1911, Hutchinson won a settlement for $150,000. The following year, Smith collected $323,750. Plant appealed and lost both cases.1 On the domestic scene, Tom and Caroline Plant’s relationship had its ups and downs. They had lived together in Boston until September 1910, at which time Caroline discovered her husband’s affair with another woman.

As newspaper reporters dug into the story, details leaked out. Tom had met Catherine Haberley, who worked as a waitress in his factory’s restaurant, and they began to have a liaison. He set her up in “luxurious apartments” in New York and hired Florence Stoddard as a governess to educate his “niece.” Stoddard said her suspicions were aroused when Catherine took extended trips away from her care, and then her concerns were confirmed by an incriminating letter she discovered; this led her to resign her position.

It came out that Tom would rendezvous with Catherine in Maine, the Maritimes, and New York. A sports guide “from the New Brunswick woods” testified that Tom and Catherine had stayed at his camp. In January 1911, Caroline entered a motion for divorce and attachment of $1.5 million, and then retired to a 24-acre estate in the elegant residential town of Cohasset, south of Boston. Friends in Chicago reported no knowledge of trouble, but the newspapers considered it a “sensational divorce suit.”2 Caroline’s attorneys issued inquiries about Plant’s assets in eight financial institutions, which revealed the following disposition:

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A Castle in the Clouds:

$200,802.75 National Shawmut Bank 152,911.03 International Trust Company 113,836.26 The American Trust Company 16,939.46 National Bank of Commerce 1,889.40 First National Bank of Boston 0

Lynn National Bank 0 United Shoe Machinery Company No answer from the Lynn Safe Deposit & Trust Company.3 Certainly, this $486,378.90 did not represent all of Tom Plant’s assets, but it does demonstrate his ties to the Shawmut Bank allies. Secondary sources reported Plant’s wealth to be in the neighborhood $30 million, which would be equivalent to almost $1 billion in present-day funds. The three lawsuits for almost $2 million were reason enough for him to hide his assets, which he seems to have done with alacrity.4 Bull Moose Progressive Politics had lurked behind the corporate wheeling and dealing of the Shoe Machinery War. In 1911, the Massachusetts legislature elected Henry Cabot Lodge to the U.S. Senate, but under shady backroom politics involving the USMC. Lodge’s opponent for that seat was Democrat Sherman Whipple, who had been Plant’s lawyer in the USMC cases and in his divorce proceedings. Whipple lost his bid for the Senate when three “unlikely” Democrats switched their votes to Lodge, reportedly under the influence of the USMC.5 It is easy to see what led Plant to support political opponents of his corporate enemies.

Tom Plant and Sherman Whipple had helped each other in what seems to have been an alliance between a renegade Republican and a mainstream Democrat. Plant had recruited political allies as leverage in his battle against the USMC, while Whipple used the abuses of the USMC as political points in his campaign against Lodge. Plant’s politics were ambivalent. Although many of his associates, like Whipple and Gaston, were activists in the Democratic Party, his business interests seem to have lain with Republicans. However, it is unlikely that Plant would have been comfortable supporting the party of his industrial opponents (Republican) or that of Boston workers (Democrat).6

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In 1912, the Republican Party split between W.H. Taft’s conservative Republicans and Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party. The Progressives damned “Republican Freebooters” and “Democratic Freebooters” alike.

They advocated for social welfare and reform capitalism, and were accused

by Taft – in USMC’s stronghold of Beverly, Massachusetts – of being socialists. It was a time of great political idealism.7 The Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party no doubt appealed to Plant’s enthusiastic personality and pro-capitalist yet progressive convictions. The rupture in the Republican hierarchy let Plant vent his political energy in a truer reflection of his beliefs than the two-party system had previously allowed.

Although obituaries remembered Plant’s activities in the Progressive Party’s 1912 campaign, research has failed to turn up primary evidence, other than a few notes in the 1915–1916 Progressive Party records.

Apocryphal stories mention that Plant had hoped for a diplomatic posting from Roosevelt, if he were to have been successful in his campaign to win the presidency, a not uncommon method to further personal prestige.8 Search for a Home Although Tom Plant had grown distant from his kin in Maine, he remained close to his brother’s family. When he was in Boston, he stayed at their home in Newton. William Plant continued his work as superintendent of the reorganized Thomas G. Plant Company until 1911 and then as a director until 1916.9 William seems to have been his best friend, and Tom seems to have treated his niece and nephews as though they were his children. Indeed, accounts mistakenly referred to them as his offspring, reflecting close ties.

After the exhausting efforts of the Shoe Machinery War, as well as his pending litigation and divorce, Tom decided to travel in search of a good location to build a home and spend the rest of his life. In January 1911, he sailed for Europe. One evening aboard ship, it was said that Amy Plant enchanted her uncle with a description of Ossipee Park, near her parents’ summer home on the north shore of Lake Winnipesauke. She told that it was more beautiful than any place they would see on their trip.10 Lake Winnipesaukee lies in central New Hampshire. The state’s largest lake, it is 40 kilometers long by 20 kilometers wide (24 by 12 miles). In the midst of the Great Northern Forest, the lake has 500 kilometers (300 miles) of indented shoreline and 300 islands. A series of foothills, spurs

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and peaks on the northeast side make up the Ossipee Mountains and provide a dramatic view of the area. Families of Revolutionary War soldiers took land grants on a plateau of one of these hills in the 18th century, which grew into a farming community known as Ossipee Glen. Other farms lay scattered down the slope and along the lake. As the plateau community declined in the mid-19th century, tourism entered. A small sulfur spring attracted urban folks seeking a “cure” for their ills, so a rough spa evolved and local residents served them from a farm converted into a hostel. Shannon Brook flows from Cold Spring in a 150 meter (500 foot) drop, through a series Ossipee Park, New Hampshire, advertising card, 1884 season.

Weelahka Hall, Benjamin Shaw’s residence & hotel at the top with exaggerated depiction of the falls.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

of waterfalls. Landmark summits acquired picturesque names like Black Snout, Bald Knob, and Turtle Back.11 Much of the mountain became the private estate of Benjamin Shaw in 1879. He built a large Queen Anne style house, called Weelahka Hall, in a meadow on the mountain slope; then constructed a carriageway, developed paths through the forest and bridges over streams, named waterfalls, and erected a pavilion, known as the

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“Crow’s Nest,” on the crest above his house, which gave a spectacular view of the lake and lower hills. Shaw then opened his Ossipee Mountain Park to the public for a nominal fee of 50¢. Local livery stables kept special twelveseat wagons for visitors and a tourist economy began to blossom. Shaw died in 1890, so his daughter took it over it for eight years. Two Brooklyn school teachers then bought and developed it. They converted Weelahka Hall into a central resort hotel, which, together with the cottages, could accommodate forty guests. The area became celebrated as one of the “Seven Wonders of New Hampshire,” the “Saratoga Springs of New Hampshire,” and the “Little Yosemite of New England.”12 Given the tourism that had developed in the Ossipee Mountains, Plant’s land purchases were not as impetuous as they might appear. Tom was from northern New England, had been vacationing in New Hampshire since the turn of the century, probably knew of Ossipee Park by reputation, if not by experience, and visited his brother’s summer home in nearby Tuftonboro.

People from the Ossipee area had worked in Plant’s factory and could have further popularized the area to him.13 In the spring of 1911, while in Europe, Tom cabled his brother William, his friend Alfred Grover, and his ex-secretary from the factory, Alfred Handley. He asked them to begin to buy land for him in the Ossipee Mountains. He also requested Handley to assemble information about architects, landscapers, contractors and materials for an estate on the property. At the end of July, Plant stept off the boat in New York and was met by Handley. They discussed the estate and the work before them. Plant offered him the job as his private secretary, which Handley accepted and resigned from the T.G. Plant Company. The two men then left almost immediately for Moultonborough, New Hampshire.14 Plant’s hope was for: ...[A] country home for a man of big thoughts and ideas, who can enjoy big things in a big way; a man who wants to make it possible for his family to spend long, happy summers and autumns in the open, close to nature, where they can enjoy within the limits of their own property every conceivable healthful outdoor sport…Such a man and his family want something more, something richer and better than the artificial, hectic life of the suburb, or of the fashionable summer resort. They appreciate the comfort and freedom and privacy of a real home; the purity and tonic effect of the pine scented mountain air; the joy of living their own lives in their own way, free from the interference and intrusion of close neighbors. They want a conveniently accessible location, but independence and seclusion as well.15

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Despite such a beautifully phrased ideal, Plant walked into a hornet’s nest. Handley and Grover had conferred with a Boston contractor about preliminary work, and, before Plant’s arrival, the firm moved around 200 workers, horses, carts and other equipment into Ossipee Park without full authorization. In August 1911, after Plant returned, he decided the season was too late to begin work, so he dismissed the company. Local people attached the contractor’s equipment for money owed them. Sixty Italian laborers also rebelled. After being paid their week’s wages, they demanded tickets to Boston but were refused when they arrived at the steamboat dock at Melvin Point. They locked the foremen in the work shanties and walked to Moultonborough, brandishing knives, firing guns, and arguing loudly. The selectmen called the governor about “ferocious” Italian workers “terrorizing” the community, so the sheriff and a posse of seventy men armed with deer rifles were dispatched. The laborers returned to Boston without their fares. The incident was given humorous coverage in the Boston papers and lived in local memory as the “Padrone War,” despite the fact that the workers were not the focus of the conflict. Plant paid the workers and settled accounts, but the contractor pursued him in court for a commission when Plant recommenced work with another firm.16 William Plant and Alfred Handley reassigned the land that they bought to Tom, who continued to buy more than 688 acres (278 hectares) on Ossipee Mountain and Lake Winnipesaukee. He used local agents to purchase many of the lots for him. Much of it came from absentee owners or local people who acquired it for investment or development. Some of the sellers were mountain people and their families who had moved away, as well as the owners of Ossipee Park, whose business had declined. This process is significant. It shows that Plant was just one of many in a thirty year sequence of summer people and speculators – not a recent arrival doing something unique. However, as with his business life, Tom did carry the transactions to an unprecedented level.17 These acquisitions were not always an easy process. Plant balked at what he considered high prices. Some would not sell at any price. The Lee family refused to sell their 200-acre (81 hectare) farm. Five generations of their family had lived in their two-story, clapboard house that had stood since the Revolutionary War. In December 1911, Plant’s agents built a “spite fence” of scrap lumber facing their house – 20 feet high and 600 feet long (6 x 183 meters), then painted grotesque faces and caricatures of farm animals on nearby buildings...huge roosters with $500 bills in their beaks

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and Indians with tongues sticking out. The dynamics were complicated.

One of the men who built the spite fence was a relative of the Lee family.

Money skewed loyalties. The Lees eventually sold their property for $4000 and moved into the town of Moultonborough.18 In April 1912, Plant transferred most of his land to his brother for a year, apparently to protect it from pending lawsuits. This transfer was done with the consent of his estranged wife and, indeed, such a need to hide his assets could have been an inducement for them to have made up. On the urging of their friends, the couple was reported to have reconciled by June 1912, and Caroline said that Tom visited her several times in Cohasset.

Just after his court battle with Harry Smith, Tom went on another voyage to Europe, and William continued to buy property for his brother while he was overseas.19 In 1911–1912, Plant opened a lawsuit against the Fiat Auto Company of Italy on a car he purchased. Besides being another example of his insistence on quality and fair play, it also demonstrates a developing affection for European heritage. During his time in France in 1912, he met Olive Cornelia Dewey. Although 24 years his junior, he was quite taken with her. Olive came from Toulon, Illinois and was traveling with cousins. She was a graduate of Wellesley College, had progressive views to match Tom’s, as well as interests in theater, museums, opera, concerts, and travel. This meeting helped to finish Tom’s marriage to Caroline. After his return to the States, Caroline reopened the divorce, which was granted in October of 1912. A prevalent, but undocumented, story is that Tom ended the marriage by leaving Caroline a $1 million check in her napkin ring, which she found William Plant, Bill Hooper & Mr. when she came down to breakfast one 20 McLeod at the Crow’s Nest in the morning.

Ossipee Mountains, New Hampshire, 1912. Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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After Tom’s return from France and the lawsuits had been resolved, William reassigned the property back to him. The land purchases continued after this transfer, although in decreasing numbers. Between 1911 and 1913, Plant is generally listed as being from Boston, once from Brockton and, in 1912, from New York City. In New York, he lived at the Hotel Belmont and the Hotel Gotham. This shows a transient lifestyle and undoubtedly produced a desire to settle down in his own home. Tom set about to make his dreams come true. As one journalist put it: “He did not leave Boston a poor man. Far from it. He still had enough to buy a sandwich, a mountain and a lake front.” The result was an estate “compared with which many an age-old grant of the British isles is a piker.”21 The Start of an Estate Over the winter of 1912–1913, Tom Plant honed plans for his estate to be built on thousands of acres of woodland, meadow, and pasture. He decided to erect a mansion on the Crow’s Nest peak, but his first architect refused to build there, saying that the structure would “stand up like a sore thumb.” It is said that Plant fired him, and two others, before finally developing his own plans with the Boston-based architectural firm of J. Williams Beal, Sons.

Impatient to complete the project, Plant ordered construction to begin, in the spring of 1913, on all projects at once – mansion, stables, lodges, stone walls and more than thirty miles (fifty kilometers) of carriageways with ditches, bridges, and culverts. Family friend Mary Case succinctly observed: “With characteristic and dynamic imagination he leveled the top of a mountain and used the rock to construct his house.”22 Moultonborough was not an urban nexus; it was just a farming community in a remote part of New England. Photographs held by the Plant family show how, before construction even began, warehouses had to be erected in which to store building supplies that were brought in by train to railheads in nearby Wolfeboro or Meredith and then boated or carted to Ossipee. Accommodations for workers also had to be built. The mere preparations were sizable projects.23 Plant hired as many as 1000 workers, including Italian stonemasons, carpenters, and fifty teamsters. An existing two mile (three kilometer) lane ran in switch-back fashion from the village road up through stands of beech, oak and maple to the worksite. From this artery, Plant and his engineer took care to lay out other roadways, a task that employed 500 horses

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and drop-bottom carts. Plant lost none of his autocratic temperament.

Returning from an absence to discover that workers had built the Little Pebble Road with two lanes, he furiously called the contractor “on the mat” and ordered him to rebuild it as a single lane road. If walls did not meet with his approval, he ordered them torn down and rebuilt. Old bridges were repaired and new ones assembled. Masons constructed a stone dam across Shannon Brook, which created a five acre (two hectare) pond for skating and angling, with a bungalow on the shore. When the boss was not around, workers would catch fish during their breaks. Plant loved trees to such an extent that he refused for any to be destroyed in the construction of a wall around his estate.24

Stone workers in front of one of the Lucknow warehouses, 1913.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

A majority of the teamsters came from the surrounding area, but the Italian stonemasons came from Boston – despite a tale that Plant brought them from Europe. They lived in their own camps, supplied by a padrone.

Plant paid higher than the prevailing wage and people said that “his bark was much worse than his bite.” Plant would watch workers from horseback through his binoculars. If a man wasn’t doing his work, he would fire him on the spot. But if he saw the man in town the next day, he was just as likely to hire him back at a higher wage.25 Tom had kept in touch with Olive Dewey after his return from Europe.

A romance developed, and they were married just after his divorce went

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into effect. Olive was 30 years old, Tom 54. She was a foot (30 centimeters) taller than him. When construction got underway, the newlyweds went on a European honeymoon, in the spring of 1913. Upon their return, they moved into a nearby farmhouse, later named Westwynde, while they waited for the mansion to be completed. Tom also hired Olive’s brothers as crew supervisors; they reported their great respect for the craft workers building the estate.26 The main house, Lucknow, was built “in the manner of fine cabinet work,” as Plant described it. It lay at a southern exposure, on solid ledge, and was constructed with steel framing faced with locally quarried pink granite cut into five-sided blocks. These were said to symbolize the five great world powers, in the few remaining days before World War I. Plant hired a boyhood friend to find large pieces of Maine oak, which were then fashioned into beams in Bath shipyards. Built to “last a lifetime,” Plant blended his favorite styles of architecture into a melange said to celebrate the diverse heritages of the United States that he had experienced during his worklife and that he felt enriched the nation with their unique beauty and strengths.

The cement between blocks was recessed, giving an appearance of seamless construction. It was said that a mason could only cut and lay three stones a day and, because they were so customized, that they had to be numbered for replacement when repairs were made.27 Plant made no claim for consistency. An account notes how the architecture expressed its owner’s sense of independence: Marilla & Olive Dewey, sisters in “for the plans and details of Toulon, Illinois, 1913.

Courtesy of John Dewey, Delafield, Wisconsin. construction followed his ideas and wishes notwithstanding the strenuous objections of the architect, who deplored a mixture of styles and periods.” Tom’s own description explains his intent: “The architecture of the house expresses our nationalism – a mixture of nationalities. The towers are Norman, the gables on entrance and lake side are a combination of Norwegian and Swiss chalet, the ridge pole is Japanese, and the east and west

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ends are a combination of English and Norwegian architecture.” Taking the general form of the bungalow style, which was popular in early 20th century domestic architecture, Lucknow exemplifies the Arts and Crafts movement ideal of “living in harmony with nature” that Plant so often celebrated.

Despite the asymmetric design, its rugged and rustic look and expansive red tile roof were intended to blend into the surroundings.28 The town of Moultonborough was not electrified, so Tom installed hydro-generators in the stables. As with his factories, he worried about fire. He thought that his house was so unique, so laboriously built and so remote that, despite insurance, reconstruction would have been overwhelming. So, he located a fire hydrant outdoors, with hoses and connectors on each floor.

The hollow tile walls and terra cotta roofing used in the house Construction on the main house construction were also advertised at Lucknow, 1914. in period magazines for their fire29 Courtesy of Kenneth Plant. proofing qualities.

Tom chose an octagonal room in the tower for the master suite, facing east, so as to view the rising sun – his preference being for morning and early rising. The fully tiled double bathroom featured the newest in design and fixtures, including a built-in tub, two toilets, two sinks lowered to his height, and a “needle” shower. The shower had wrap-around tubes with hundreds of tiny holes, producing a high pressure spray that gave the feeling of watery needles. The large dressing room next to the bathroom, lit partly by skylights, also contained fitness rings for exercise. In leaving the suite, one entered a boudoir that opened into the upper hall as well. Later identified as “Olive’s bedroom,” a larger guestroom down the hall faced west and south, giving a brilliant view of the sunset – said to be her favorite time of day.30 Downstairs, the large main entry hall had a unique, green-veined Italian marble fireplace for which it is said that Tom waited two years for matching stone to be quarried. The hall contained sturdy wood and leather furniture, a massive oak pool table, mounted deer heads, animal skin rugs, and bronze sculptures on the mantel. Tom was very fond of organ music

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Lucknow, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, circa 1920.

George Wesley Perry photograph in Country Life, October 1924.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

and ordered a large pipe organ from the Aeolian Company to be recessed into the wall. He described it as 21 feet deep, 12 feet wide and 13 feet high (6 x 4 x 4 meters). Company records indicate that they had to lower the floor a foot (a half meter) to accommodate it. The organ could be played mechanically with player-rolls or by hand, and was electrically wired to be heard throughout the house, with an echo organ in the attic. One music outlet issued over the second floor hall.31 The combined library and living room was said to be Tom’s favorite space. Two mahogany griffins guarded the entrance to his collection of books on nature, history, and horticulture. The golden marble fireplace had a flue going around either side of a picture window, which allowed for a view of the outdoors over a blazing hearth. Paintings by artist Thomas Moran, hung on the walls – one was a view of Venice, the other a panorama of Zion Valley in Utah. Tom also had a “secret” room built behind the library wall as a private reading area, which, legend has it, he always kept locked and for which only he had a key. Like other public spaces in the house, the living room featured furnishings from well-known firms, such as a large library table with each leg carved with different leaf motifs.32 The octagonal dining room featured a wooden floor arranged into a star pattern, furniture contoured to the room, and a tile fireplace. The windows

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held colored roundels decorated with hand-painted scenes of game birds and fruit. Its ceiling was decorated in a floral motif, with hand-carved, hand-painted plaster clusters of wisteria. Tom reportedly kept a Swedish decorator flat on his back on a scaffold for days, carving the plaster to his specifications. Chimes called the Plants and their guests to meals.33 Work areas were equipped with modern conveniences to expedite work and to allow for fewer employees. The estate was maintained by a workshop and supplied from an ice house. A Western Electric intercom system ran through the house and stable, while the house had a central vacuuming and incinerator system. The kitchen had interlocking, rubbertile flooring that was advertised as “indestructible” and “sanitary,” as well as a self-cleaning stove. Instead of a customary icebox, there was a mechanical refrigeration unit, which was advertised as fit for the “modern home.” The basement had a wine cellar, safety deposit vault, wood-fired furnace for a hot-water heating system (with radiators behind hollow tile walls), pet quarters, and a laundry room with porcelain sinks and steam chambers. Spring water emptied into a large reservoir 85-feet (26 meters) above the house and provided a “whopping” 70 pounds (483 kilopascals)

Main Hall at Lucknow, 1920. George Wesley Perry photograph in Country Life, October 1924. Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

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of pressure. All outbuildings had bathrooms and running water as well.34 These modern design features were in keeping with Tom’s industrial sites, but, before World War I, such innovations were not common in homes.

Tom Plant noted: “[T]he windows and doors are imported English leaded casements, and the entire interior finish and furnishing of every description is of the very best that could be bought of the leading New York and Boston houses.” Detailed research by historian Cristina Ashjian confirms that Lucknow was conceived in keeping with the privileged lifestyle promoted by taste-making magazines of the era, a lifestyle emulated by Tom and Olive Plant in New Hampshire. A frequent visitor to Lucknow said she remembered everything as “glamorous and refined.” 35 The analysis by Ashjian shows that Tom Plant did not compose the entire estate out of his own head, as has been implied. As in his industrial career, he cultivated the work of others and merged it with his own ideas.

The mansion contained sixteen rooms, on three floors, that opened onto the outdoors through windows with novel rollaway screens. The second floor hall, an extension of the downstairs main hall, featured a large skylight with silver tassel lamps suspended at each corner. A commanding portrait of Tom Plant, represented as a country gentleman, hung over the stairway. It was painted by Alphonse Jongers, a French-born artist who first

First Floor plan, Lucknow, Country Life, October 1924.

Courtesy of Wayne Wakefield, Moultonbourough, New Hampshire.

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settled in Montréal, then established a studio in New York. He was known for society portraits.36 Multiple French doors on the ground floor opened onto a lawn terrace, designed as a seasonal living space. The lawn was said to feel “like an Oriental rug with a three-inch pile.” A garden pond and fountain included a bronze woodland nymph seated on rocks that was sculpted by Bostonbased artist Lucy Currier Richards. The house lay on a spur of the halfmile (kilometer) high crest of the Ossipee Mountains, which afforded a view, along a covered walkway and pergola, unrivaled in New England. The Belknap Mountains unfolded 75 miles (120 kilometers) away, across Lake Winnipesaukee, where steamers could be seen chuffing along the shore.37 In the early days, a single telephone made only out-going calls to preserve Tom’s seclusion. Stone gatehouses stood at the entrances, while groundskeepers kept watch along the stone walls around the property. For some, the house seemed to have a maritime motif – shipwrighted oakwork, portholes in bedroom walls, curved ceilings, and skylights like cabin tops – “on cloudy days, the gigantic building might well have resembled a ship at sea as the world below was hidden by the turbulent mists.”38 Tom maintained a farm on the public highway that had two houses and three barns, as well as a workshop and sheds. It was said that he tried to raise sheep, but his lack of experience led to disaster – they all died when he housed them in one set of pens and fed them uncut vegetables. Such incidents led him to hire qualified local people to run the farm. It produced beef, pork, lamb, poultry, eggs, dairy products and vegetables, as well as 125 tons (113 tonnes) of hay on “ample” pasture. The farmworkers canned food and made cheese. “Tom Plant’s Farm” became a model farm.39 Early on, the Plants employed twenty to thirty workers, many from the local area, who worked at the farm, boathouse, garage and stable, as well as in the main house. Their families lived in the mansion, gatehouses, stable house and outlying facilities, such as the farm. Elizabeth Pynn, the daughter of Tom’s driver, happily remembered visiting the mansion every afternoon, where she would jump from the windowsills into Tom’s arms and ride the griffins in his library. There was work enough to keep everyone busy. The mansion had four fireplaces and used one hundred cords (362 steres) of wood a year – seven cords (25 steres) on a cold day – all harvested from the estate. Lucknow was arranged for “the minimum of care with the maximum of freedom and pleasure.”40 This, of course, meant – if an owner had enough money, time, and hired hands.

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Lucknow & Valley Vista, circa 1915. George Wesley Perry photograph in Country Life, October 1924. Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

The entire estate cost just over $1 million and was likened to the subtle luxury of a Rolls Royce: “…rich without looking costly, simple, yet beautiful and artistic.” Tom and Olive moved into their new dwelling in the autumn of 1914. Olive reported to her alma mater with intentional understatement that she had “helped build a house on a hill.”41 One account reports that Tom named his mansion after a Scottish castle; another says that it was named for Napoleon’s retreat. Neither version is true. A poem left by Olive declaims: “In the twilit hall, by the open fire, each one agrees, ‘I’m in Luck Now at last.’” This suggests that the name was intended as a pun and a reference to their ideal, in the period’s tradition of naming country homes.42 The enameled roundels set in the glass windows on either side of the front entrance feature an “L” and an “N” surrounded by garlands, lending credibility to this reference. Perhaps because the property was called “Plant’s Castle” in contemporary accounts, later owners dubbed it the “Castle in the Clouds,” as it is known today.

Even if Lucknow was not the name of Napoleon’s hideaway, Tom Plant was a great admirer of Napoleon, a popular fad in the early 20th century.

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Such an ideal was a natural fit, as both were enlightened despots. Tom owned a bust, statuette and portrait of the Emperor, as well as art prints of Napoleon’s famous battles and a collection of literature about him. It is said that Tom carried peanuts in his pocket to help him think (as Napoleon had carried marbles). Short in height like his hero, he stood only 5 feet high (152 centimeters). Concern over his height reportedly caused Tom to avoid photographs, of which few exist.43 He had apple-red cheeks, and finely-chiseled lips, usually smiling.

He had courtly, old-world manners, always greeting me with “Lovely Lady,” which was so heart-warming. He had a husky, low pitched voice which made one feel admitted to his confidence.44 Tom Plant continued to provide good copy for newspapers, as journalists popularized him as the “Lord of Ossipee Mountain” and the “Earl of Ossipee Park,” local irony that Tom turned into a badge of honor.

Perhaps Gaynor O’Gorman was right when he reported that Plant had “settled down to live as a feudal baron.”45 Summary There is insufficient detail with which to clearly reconstruct the motivations of Plant’s transition from industrialist to financier, from business to retirement. Separated from the day-to-day management of a company, he acquired the time and capital to pursue a life of leisure. Dissatisfaction with his earlier life was apparent in his love affairs, legal battles, transience, travels, divorce, political reaffiliation and remarriage. In the two years after the Shoe Machinery War, Plant began to develop plans for an ideal lifestyle.

This ideal had been perhaps, in part, galvanized by the Progressive Party.

Plant’s activities in progressive politics show individualism and a modernist view that contradicts conservative stereotypes of Franco-Americans.46 Given the advanced degree of Plant’s assimilation to the dominant Yankee culture and his ties to Irish and other ethnic colleagues, his allegiance to the Progressive Party was probably more of an expression of class than ethnicity.

He was one of the upwardly mobile, class-shifting, nouveaux riches who had both suffered and profited from the capitalist system. It is likely that his political activism was a symptom of his changing lifestyle.

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In the late 19th century, a large “Back-to-Nature” movement diverged in many directions. It was an outgrowth of the English Romantic Movement and manifested itself in North America in the raw naturalism of John Muir, the government conservation of Gifford Pinchot, the urban park development of Frederick Law Olmstead, the tourism of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and the artistic expression of Canada’s “Group of Seven” landscape painters. Tom Plant was caught up in the trend. Many of the Anglo-capitalist aristocracy had begun moving to suburban homes and summer retreats after the 1880s, in order to insulate themselves from urban ugliness and ethnic “contamination” – the by-products of their urban fortunes.47 Although Tom Plant had been well assimilated into Yankee culture, he was sensitive to cultural matters. He came into his wealth and leisure at a time when it had become fashionable among the bourgeoisie in the United States to search into their ethnic heritage – so long as it came from a western European lineage. Plant traveled in France for long periods of time, had his portrait painted by a French painter, and read widely in French biography and history. Although no data exists to support Plant’s innermost thoughts, it would seem that he was participating in the cultural activities of the Yankee elite and had by-passed his Canadian origins to go back to Europe.48

Endnotes 1 Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Supreme Court: Hutchinson; Smith.

2 Plant and Haberley were said to have rendezvoused at Calais and Bangor, Maine in October 1909, and at St. George, New Brunswick. John McGerr was the New Brunswick guide. Caroline Griggs Plant acquired her Cohasset property through her family. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Libel for Divorce; Norfolk County, Deed Registry, Mary Griggs to Caroline Plant, 16 November 1911, Book 1217: 89–90. Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued by Wife.” Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife”; “Plant & Wife Reconciled.” Williamsport Gazette & Bulletin, “Rich Man’s Waitress Leads to Divorce,” 30 October 1912. New York Times, “Mrs. Plant Gets Decree”; Mrs. Thomas Plant.” Boston Journal, “Absolute Decree for Mrs. Plant.”

3 Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Libel for Divorce.

4 A 1914 newspaper mentions Tom Plant and his brother William as being investors in the Hotel Winston in Washington, D.C. Such investments would have been strategic and easily hidden. Plant’s fortune is difficult to estimate. Two employees of the Castle in the Clouds, John Davis in the 1960s and Patricia Gray

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Davis: 3. “Young Plant’s Bride Owner of Famous Foot.” Boston Journal, “Absolute Decree for Mrs. Plant.”

5 Prior to 1913, U.S. senators were elected by the legislature of each state. The Massachusetts Republican Party was led by Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) and Winthrop Murray Crane (1853–1920). Lodge represented Massachusetts in Washington, D.C. from 1886 to 1924. In 1908, Sydney Winslow, president of the USMC and a Crane supporter, was a candidate for the position of delegate to the Republican National Convention. O’Gorman: 261, 367. James T. White & Company, Volume 19: 52–54.

6 In 1912, Whipple withdrew from Plant’s divorce proceedings, indicating a redirection of Whipple’s energy during the national election. Boston Evening Transcript, “Sherman L. Whipple Dies.” James T. White & Company, Volume 26: 82–83. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Libel for Divorce.

7 Gable: 24, 90–93, 112.

8 I have not been able to document Plant’s aspiration for diplomatic appointment.

Perhaps it was merely speculation about the reason for Plant’s support of Roosevelt.

Political activity on a state or national level was often a springboard to larger prestige and fortune. The Christian Science Monitor, “Thomas G. Plant,” 26 July 1941. Boston Sunday Globe, “Memorial Rites for Thomas G. Plant to Be Held Tuesday,” 27 July 1941. New York Times, T.C. (error) Plant is Dead.” Castle in the Clouds, “A Castle Awaits your Climb to the Clouds.” Walkowitz: 57–59. Dailey.

9 Sampson, Murdock & Company, The Boston Directory: (1910): 1470; (1911): 1539; (1912): 1483; (1913): 1513; (1914): 1541; (1915): 1580. “Millionaire Plant’s Son.” 10 Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, John Kelly Contracting Company: 2. Seymour: 49. Gray: 2. Wilkin: 2.

11 The nearby town of Wolfeboro is known as the first resort in the United States, dating from the mid-1700s. Coburn. The hostel was called the Mineral Spring House and was later renamed Westwynde after Tom Plant acquired it. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-c. Thomas Plant, “Lucknow”: 24. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 4. George: 1. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 16. The decline of farm communities took place throughout New England in the mid-19th century. In brief, farmers could not compete against those with better farmland in the Midwest, as railroads allowed their products to get to eastern markets as cheaply as those from New England.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 12 Benjamin Shaw (1832–1890) was from Maine. He wrote school geographies and educational literature in his youth, but made his fortune by inventing and producing machines for the manufacture of seamless stockings. He owned the Shaw-Knit Stocking Company in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1882, the town of Moultonborough voted to name a nearby peak “Mount Shaw.” The later resort served as a retreat for poets such as John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) and Lucy Larcom (1824–1893). Tourists would travel from Boston to Lake Winnipesaukee by train. At Lakeport or the Weirs, they would board a boat to Centre Harbor, where a stagecoach would transport them sixteen kilometers (ten miles) up the hillside to Ossipee Park. Estaver: 13. Gray: 2–3. Malaspina: 37. Wilkin: 2–3. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 3–4. Coburn. George: 3. New York Times, “Obituary: Benjamin Shaw,” 12 December 1890. D. Appleton & Company: 665.

13 Among the local people in the Ossipee area who had worked for Tom Plant was the Lamprey family. The father of Robert Lamprey Sr. had been killed in an accident when the boy was thirteen years old. His family moved to Boston in search of work. Bob Lamprey took a job as a leather-sorter at the T.G. Plant Company. He met one of Plant’s secretaries, Mary Campbell, and they married in 1911. They returned to Moultonborough twelve years later. Although Mary liked Tom Plant, they had little contact. Lamprey, interview.

14 Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County: John Kelly Contracting Company. Elliot Grover.

15 It is assumed the text is in Tom Plant’s words. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 8.

16 In 1910, the John Kelly Contracting Company had worked on the T.G. Plant Company’s rest park in Boston. In July 1911, they brought workers, horses and equipment to Moultonborough to begin construction of the estate, but the project was placed on hold. When construction began in 1913, Plant offered the job to them, but they could not take it because of prior commitments. The debacle resurfaced in a lawsuit in 1917–1922, when the firm claimed that they were owed a $75,000 commission, even though another contractor had done the job. The plaintiff claimed that it had taken so long to press the suit because Plant had been out of the country, in the Bahamas. It led to a jury trial, and Plant was ordered to pay just under $2500. It might seem a spurious claim, but Plant was about to begin work on the country club, so it also could have been a coercive attempt to force him to hire the company as part of a settlement. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County: John Kelly Contracting Company. Elliot Grover.

Boston Herald, “T.G. Plant Estate Laborers Shoot up Moultonboro,” 5 August 1911; “Rioters Come Home to Boston,” 6 August 1911; “T.G. Plant in $75,000 Suit,” 5 August 1919. Springfield Daily News, “Italians who Shot up Moultonboro, Tamed,” 5 August 1911.

17 In April 1912, Alfred Handley of Sandwich, New Hampshire and Newton, Massachusetts sold fifteen parcels of land in Carroll County to William Plant.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Handley had bought these lots between May and July 1911, along with another lot in January 1912. William Plant reassigned this property to his brother Tom. Handley later sold Tom Plant 42 more parcels. It is difficult to estimate what Plant spent to acquire these lands because the extensive use of the phrase, “$1 and other valuable considerations,” is so often employed to mask the transactions.

Plant was said to be from Boston in all but one of his transactions. George: 4. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Alfred Handley to William Plant, 16 April 1912, Book 141: 377; William Plant to Thomas Plant, 24 April 1913, Book 144: 351–352; Alfred Handley to Thomas Plant, 22 December 1913, Book 146: 532; Albert Norris to Thomas Plant, 23 August 1911, Book 141: 359; Quitclaim of Albert Norris to Thomas Plant, 23 August 1911, Book 145: 191; Orodon Hobbs to Thomas Plant, 29 August 1911, Book 141: 356; C.W. Tyler to Thomas Plant, 31 August 1911, Book 141: 348; John & May Edgerly to Thomas Plant, 4 September 1911, Book 140: 595; Mary Fernald to Thomas Plant, 4 December 1911, Book 144: 397; Issac & Helen Moulton to Thomas Plant, 15 December 1911, Book 140: 593; Graham & Lana Thompson to Thomas Plant, 26 December 1911: Book 144: 380; Jesse & Ida Sargent to Thomas Plant, 27 December 1911, Book 140: 594; Jacob & Maria Hodgdon to Thomas Plant, 29 December 1911, Book 140: 585; Albert Norris to Thomas Plant, 23 August 1911, Book 141: 359; Quitclaim of Albert Norris to Thomas Plant, 23 August 1911, Book 145: 191; Orodon Hobbs to Thomas Plant, 29 August 1911, Book 141: 356; C.W. Tyler to Thomas Plant, 31 August 1911, Book 141: 348; John & May Edgerly to Thomas Plant, 4 September 1911, Book 140: 595; Mary Fernald to Thomas Plant, 4 December 1911, Book 144: 397; Issac & Helen Moulton to Thomas Plant, 15 December 1911, Book 140: 593; Graham & Lana Thompson to Thomas Plant, 26 December 1911, Book 144: 380; Jesse & Ida Sargent to Thomas Plant, 27 December 1911, Book 140: 594; Jacob & Maria Hodgdon to Thomas Plant, 29 December 1911, Book 140: 585.

18 Mrs. Lee thought it was best to sell the property to Plant and have done with the conflict, even though they had money and did not need to sell. Newspapers reported that Mrs. Lee’s family was worth $40,000. The Lees sold the land for $1500 more than Plant’s original offer and for $1000 more than another person had offered before Plant’s arrival. Mrs. Lee’s daughter wished that they had kept the land, since Plant’s people could have burned down the farm but not the land. The daughter knew which relative built the spite fence, but would not tell anyone. The Boston Globe reported that Fred Davis had supervised the fence’s construction. A man living with the Lee’s owned 150 acres (61 hectares) on the summit of Ossipee Mountain and said that he would take $900 for it, but that Plant would not pay it.

It is possible that the final sale included both parcels of land and that they were bought through an intermediary. Boston Globe, “Novel Spite Fence on Ossipee Mountain,” 25 February 1912. “T.G. Plant’s Fence Cuts Off the View.” Estaver: 13, 15. Drake. Martha Oliver.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 19 Chicago Record Herald, “Plant & Wife Reconciled.” New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to William Plant, 16 April 1912, Book 141: 563–564; William Plant to Thomas Plant, 24 April 1913, Book 144: 351–352; William Plant to Thomas Plant, 27 October 1913, Book 145: 193; Charlotte Coffin to William Plant, 13 July 1912, Book 144: 394; Fannie Hurlburt to William Plant, 5 December 1912, Book 135: 281; Publishers Paper Company to Thomas Plant, 7 January 1913, Book 146: 432; James & Eva McDonald to Thomas Plant, 28 February 1913, Book 144: 387; Elizabeth Berry to William Plant, 4 March 1913, Book 167: 297; Dearborn & Elizabeth Caverly to Thomas Plant, 13 March 1913, Book 143: 455; Issac & Helen Moulton to Thomas Plant, 1 April 1913, Book 144: 396; Ralph McAllister to Thomas Plant, 2 April 1913, Book 144: 398; Alfred Cromwell to Thomas Plant, 21 April 1913, Book 146: 533.

20 Historian Cristina Ashjian notes how Fiat advertised in Country Life magazine in this period and sees Plant’s purchase of one of their vehicles as part of his attempt to fit the image of a gentleman of wealth and leisure. Olive Dewey’s parents attended Wheaton College in Illinois, but had not graduated. Her father was a banker. Olive was a Greek major at Wellesley, graduated in the Class of 1905, taught in her hometown for two years, traveled on the east and west coasts of the United States, and then went to Europe – where she met Tom Plant. Caroline Griggs Plant had one later land transaction with Tom Plant, in 1937, and then moved to Winter Park, Florida in 1939 and, after 1942, contributed to Rollins College. She died in Orlando on 3 June 1947 at the age of 85. Her body was removed to Chicago for burial. Her only surviving relative was Mrs. Robert Myers of Bronxville, New York, whose family I was not able to locate. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, T.G. Plant v. Fiat Auto Company, Nº 65661, October 1912; Libel for Divorce. Country Life, Fiat advertisement, 1 December 1911: 110. New York Times, “Mrs. Plant Gets Decree”; “Mrs. Thomas Plant.” Wilkin: 2. George: 8.

State of Florida. Berry. Gould. Reich.

21 New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, William Plant to Thomas Plant, 24 April 1913, Book 144: 351–352; William Plant to Thomas Plant, 24 April 1913, Book 144: 351–352; Jane & William Whitten to Thomas Plant, 1 May 1913, Book 144: 39; Forest Products Company to Thomas Plant, 8 May 1913, Book 146: 534; Moultonborough to Thomas Plant, 5 July 1913, Book 144: 388; Lena & Fred Davis to Thomas Plant, 7 July 1913, Book 144: 385; Horace & Clara Smith to Thomas Plant, 10 July 1913, Book 144: 386; James French to Thomas Plant, 10 July 1913, Book 144: 379; Amos Wiggin to Thomas Plant, 11 July 1913, Book 144: 395; Jesse & Ida Sargent to Thomas Plant, 8 September 1913, Book 145: 188; James French to Thomas Plant, 22 September 1913, Book 144: 597; Publishers Paper Company to Thomas Plant, 17 October 1913, Book 145: 190; J. Clifford & Emma Entwisle to Thomas Plant, circa 30 December 1913, Book 145: 462; Orodon Hobbs to Thomas Plant, 31 October 1914, Book 147: 396; Joseph K. & Joseph W. Hamlin to

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Thomas Plant, 24 November 1914, Book 147: 472; William & Louise Robinson to Thomas Plant, 16 June 1916, Book 151: 26; William Robinson to Thomas Plant, 22 May 1917, Book 153: 28. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, John Kelly Contracting Company. Coburn.

22 The land consisted of thousands of acres/hectares of woodland and hundreds of acres/hectares of meadow and pasture, reflecting a marginal farming area. Several kilometers of Plant’s roads were macadam. The Beal architectural plans were first presented in 2004 by Cristina Ashjian in her lecture, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; also see her “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture.” Olive Plant in Wilkin: 4–5. Country Life, “Blending Architecture with Nature”: 49; “Lucknow”: 7. Case: 3. Gray: 4. Gould. Drake.

23 The family photographs are held by Kenneth Plant in Blaine, Minnesota.

24 Shannon Lake contained rainbow, brook, and salmon trout. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 5. Estaver. Gould. Margaret Hunter in Wilkin: 5. Gray: 3-4. Wilkin: 5-6, 8.

Labbie. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-b, d.

25 In the development of local heroes and villains, there is a need to exaggerate reality. For example, in Tom Plant’s case, it was reported that he brought Italian craftsmen from Europe instead of from Boston. Boston had no shortage of Italian artisans at this time. Ives, George Magoon: 24–25. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 5. Coburn.

Davis: 5 .

26 Plant took over the farmhouse while the mansion was under construction.

He improved it and later used it to accommodate an overflow of guests from his mansion. Wilkin: 2–3. Scott, letter. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes, Nº 1: 5. Dewey.

27 The boyhood friend who helped Plant obtain oak timbers was Scott Frye (1856–1933). Frye established foundries and engine companies in Bath. Gould.

Wilkin: 6–7. Estaver: 12–41. Gray: 4. Bath Independent, “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” Country Life, “Lucknow”: 10, 12, 16-e. Bath Independent, “Former Bath Citizen Dies at Los Angeles,” 23 March 1933. Labbe.

28 The roof tiles were underlaid with copper sheeting. Plant’s description follows.

On the main floor was a large living hall, library, dining room, entrance hall, office, coat room, lavatory, chamber with bath, numerous closets, kitchen, built-in refrigerator, servants’ hall, and butler’s pantry. On the second floor was a hall with a porch, four master bedrooms, three baths (one double), boudoir with balcony, two dressing rooms, lavatory, and two servants’ bedrooms with bath. In the basement (one end above ground) lay two servants’ chambers, lavatory, laundry, refrigerators, closets, storeroom, and large steel vault. In the sub-basement (end above ground) was the boiler room. Seymour: 47. Ashjian, “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture.” Wilkin: 6–7. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 10–12, 16-e. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 1.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 29 The fire-fighting capacity of the mansion was later augmented by four firehydrants inside the mansion, two more outdoors, within 25 feet (8 meters) of the house, and a fire engine in the stable. Ashjian, “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Gray: 10.

Country Life, “Lucknow”: 14.

30 Nanlee Palmer reported that Tom liked blue, tan and grey colors, while Olive liked soft lavender, pink, and rose. The bathroom fixtures were supplied by the J.L. Mott Iron Works of New York, which placed considerable emphasis on “the modern shower” in its advertisements. In fact, the “shower and needle bath” model chosen by Plant was frequently shown in company ads. Elliott Grover reports that showers were “not common” at this time. The closets were lined with dovetailed cedar. The small dressing room on the other side of the bedroom led to a boudoir, which had pocket doors opening onto both the upper hall and the master dressing room, ensuring the preservation of public and private space. Ashjian, “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Lovington: 40. Gray: 8–9. Estaver: 15. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 4. Elliot Grover. Nanlee Palmer.

31 Plant ordered the organ in 1913 at a cost of $20,000. Company records indicate that it was somewhat smaller than his description. The organ was recessed into the wall between the main hall and the downstairs guest chamber, while the console and case of music rolls lay on the landing near the fireplace in the main hall. The organ is no longer at the house; only the console, player rolls and decorative pipes remain. Ashjian, “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Gray: 4, 6. Lovington: 41. Wilkin: 7.

Estaver: 15. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 14. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 1; (Nº 3): 2.

32 Thomas Moran (1837–1926) was celebrated for his paintings of the western United States. Griffins were mythic creatures, half-lion/half-eagle, that were royal symbols of power and strength. Plant’s griffins were each made from 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of solid, hand-carved mahogany. The library, when I visited the Castle in the early 1990s, did not contain Plant’s books; the Robie family, subsequent owners, had placed books from Plant’s era on the shelves. Plant noted that: “Interior woodwork and decoration was by Irving & Casson, A.H. Davenport Co. of Boston; bronze and tile work, interior and exterior, by William Jackson & Co.; electric fixtures by Edward F. Caldwell; glass decoration by Tiffany Studios; all houses having a country-wide reputation and employing the best skilled artisans.”

Some of the original furnishings are still at the Castle. The library table appears in an advertisement of 1910 for “our own handmade furniture” by the Tobey Furniture Company of New York and Chicago. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle.’” Country Life, “Lucknow”: 14. Gray: 6. Wilkin: 8. Lovington: 41. Labbie.

Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 2; (Nº 2): 2.

33 The enameled roundels in the windows in other parts of the house featured hunting motifs and landscape views, such as of the Falls of Song and Whittier

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Falls. In the private upstairs spaces, the painted windows represent seasonal flora.

The fireplace andirons were fabricated by the William H. Jackson Company of New York. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture.” Margaret Hunter in Wilkin: 7. Lovington: 41–42. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 1.

34 The self-cleaning stove was manufactured by Cyrus Carpenter & Company of Boston. The water came from Mt. Roberts, three miles (five kilometers) away. The toilets used running water “flushometers” instead of tanks. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture.” Jack Swedberg in Gray, back cover, photo. Gray: 9–10. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 7, 14, 16-d.

Lovington: 42. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 4, 5, 6; (Nº 2): 2; (Nº 3): 4. Cunningham: 79. Labbie. Gould.

35 Exhaustive research by Cristina Ashjian confirms the names of prestigious firms that appear in Plant’s sale brochures and other publications. Her presentations also include drawings, plans and photographs of original design features from the various company archives. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-e, Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; “Plant’s Castle Revisited”; “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture.” Gonnerman.

36 Alphonse Jongers (1872–1945) was a member of the National Academy in New York. He lived in New York City from 1897 to 1924, after which he returned to Montréal. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle.’” Country Life, “Lucknow”: 13–14. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 2, 3; (Nº 2): 3, 4; (Nº 3): 2, 3.

Cunningham: 79. Bénézit, Volume 6: 97. Hastings: 321.

37 The nymph was sculpted in 1917. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle.’”

Country Life, “Lucknow”: 14, 15. Wilkin: 7. Estaver: 14.

38 Lovington: 44. Estaver: 14. Labbe.

39 Plant’s Farm was sold in 1949 and is called Ledgewood Farm. Wakefield.

Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16. George: 7, 11.

40 Elizabeth Pynn (Marden) was the daughter of Leander Pynn, who worked as Plant’s mechanic and driver in 1916–1917. He also had charge of harvesting timber for construction; the excess was sold to a local lumber mill. New York Times, “For Sale.” George: 10, 11. Billie Pynn Marden in George: 10. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes, (Nº 1): 1-2. Marden.

41 Later tourist brochures and journal commentary often claim that Lucknow cost $7 million. However, Plant’s own estimate was for just over $1 million. Perhaps these later estimates meant to compute what it would cost to duplicate the estate at a later time. Plant said, in 1924, that it would cost $1.5 million due to increased costs of labor and materials. Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, John Kelly Contracting Company. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 8; in Wellesley College, Volume 3: 31. Estaver: 14. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 12, 16-e.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 42 O’Gorman: 326. Lovington: 42. Malaspina: 39. Olive Plant in Gray: 14. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 6.

43 Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle.’” Wilkin: 9–10. Gray: 6.

44 Carolyn Brock Ferris in Wilkin: 9.

45 O’Gorman: 326. Drake. Coburn.

46 Franco-Americans were often stereotyped by Yankee New England society as having an allegiance to the Republican Party, an indifference to labor organizing, and a conservative social agenda. Such generalizations are inaccurate, since many examples of their militancy for progressive ideals exist. Such a conservative image was the result of ethnic industrial conflict in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Irish and French-Canadian workers actively competed for jobs in northern New England. The Irish dominated the leadership of the Democratic Party, labor unions, and Roman Catholic dioceses. Some French Canadians fought back by alliance with the Republican Party, labor inactivity, or retreat into separate French parishes. These tactics varied at different times and places. They were of marginal use and could not last long, finally breaking down in the early 20th century. The Corporation Sole and Sentinellist conflicts between Irish bishops and FrancoAmerican parishes led to a loss of French Catholic power. With every depression, panic and recession, more Franco-American workers joined the Democratic Party and labor unions, until the Great Depression polarized workers and destroyed the popular image of conservative Franco-American cohesiveness. It would be interesting to investigate Franco-American voting patterns in the 1912 campaign and its three-party split; perhaps it was a pivotal event for providing a new choice.

Weil: 166–171.

47 There are similarities between Lucknow and Kona Farm in Moultonborough, as well as between the lives of their owners. Although Tom Plant and Herbert Dumaresq led parallel lives, their connections are uncertain. Herbert Dumaresq (1851–1955) had risen from office boy to a partner in the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston. This success was helped in part by his marriage to the founder’s daughter. Dumaresq retired in 1900 at the age of 49 with $6 million. After he and his wife divorced, he built an elaborate retreat on Lake Winnipesaukee and married a woman twenty years his junior. He loved boats and was punctual. Like Plant, many inaccurate stories circulated about him. Dumaresq also lost all his money in bad investments and died broke. He invested in the Alvarado Mining & Milling Company, a celebrated silver mine in Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1907, a syndicate that was organized in Maine and managed in Boston took over the properties. Many New Englanders were induced to invest in it. This reportedly cleaned out Dumaresq’s fortune. It was said Tom Plant also lost money in this mine investment, but it has not been substantiated. Dumaresq offered Kona Farm as a summer home to ex-president Calvin Coolidge, as Plant would seek to do with

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Lucknow for other presidents. Kelley. Ashjian, “Kona Farm”; “Moultonborough’s Estate Builders.” New York Times, “Mexico Croesus Gives up his Mines,” 18 September 1907.

48 Franco-American elites also began to look to France instead of Canada for some ideals. Weil: 176–178.

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Thomas G. Plant on Horseback, on his Mountain, with a view to Lake Winnipesaukee, c. 1930. Photo by George Wesley Perry.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

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Chapter VII – Ideas of Grandeur: The Earl of Ossipee Park While the mansion was under construction, Tom Plant had continued to buy land, obtain rights-of-way, and adjust boundaries. He eventually obtained over 6500 acres (2600 hectares) and 2 miles (3 kilometers) of frontage on Lake Winnipesaukee. Visitors were prevented from going up the mountain during the work on the estate, even though the back road belonged to the town. Plant maintained some of the old structures for housing, and put his superintendent in the ten-room house, later known as Westwynde, after he and Olive vacated it to move into their mansion. The razing of buildings not to his liking led to exaggerated reports of wanton destruction – “bonfires, lighting up the whole lake region.” It was said that he destroyed the entire village of Ossipee Glen, although it had been in ruins since before 1892. Stories of Plant’s willfulness grew over time.1 Lord of the Manor When Plant’s workers began to tear down the Lee family cemetery in the meadow where his golf course was under construction, the town selectmen and a citizen committee stopped them because “desecration” of graves was a criminal offense. Reporters came from Boston to cover the story. One went onto Plant’s estate to get a photograph of the graveyard.

Tom met them on horseback. In the argument that followed, he tore a large Graflex camera from the hands of the persistent journalist. Although Plant maintained that he had been “beautifying” the lot, he bowed to the popular revolt, rebuilt the cemetery and kept it intact.2 Nonetheless, local people resented that one person privatized property to which they all had once had access. The chair of the Moultonborough selectman at the time observed: I guess Mr. Plant is not any too well liked for his interference with the Lee burying ground. It is only one of a number of liberties which Mr. Plant has taken since he came to town. You see, Mr. Plant is one of those fellows who goes right ahead and does whatever enters his mind, and then asks permission for it afterwards. The townspeople don’t take to that way of doing.3

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The Plant and Oliver controversy, newspaper headline. Paul Drake, Boston American, 2 August 1914. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Perhaps the tensions that surfaced during this incident sensitized Tom to his neighbors. After the construction was completed, he opened his estate to visitors from 1917 to 1922, coordinating the tourist business with William Robinson, who ran a local boarding house and livery stable.4 Within a few years, though, litter and initials carved on beech trees made him withdraw the privilege. Summer visitors to Lake Winnipesaukee were confronted with walls, gatehouses, and fences. One tourist said: “It is a shame for one man to own so much of the earth and put a fence around it.” Her daughter continued: “Ossipee mountain has ceased to exist for many of us who love it.” However, Plant adopted a different attitude to local residents, whom he still allowed on his lands.5 One commented: I don’t blame Mr. Plant, either, for wantin’ to keep the crowds off his place. When he first come here he let everybody in an’ lots of ‘em abused the privilege. That’s why he had to shut the gates and put up the notices.

He don’t mean us. Last time he met me, he stopped and said: ‘Say, Joe, you ain’t lookin’ as well as you did. Now if ever you’re feeling out of sorts and the world is goin’ wrong, jest you hitch up your horse an’ drive up on my mountain. That’ll make you feel good again.’”6 Local people did appreciate the money that he paid in wages, his keeping the mountain in pristine condition, and his relieving them of having to deal with hordes of tourists – some drunk and disorderly. His wages replaced the tourist money: “If any of us have business in the park we can always go right in and be sure of being treated right.” There was a sense of ambivalence, however, of not being sure how Plant would react, which held locals back from testing how far they could go with him. They resented not being able to fish trout from “his” brooks, but didn’t try either.7 Some of the resentment and uncertainty was not directed only at Tom Plant. This part of New Hampshire was a poor but respectable area of Yankee farmers. Social life revolved around grange halls and churches. A lot of small, one-room cabins of old couples dotted the roadsides. Children said: “Our play was our work.” Local people resented rich tourists and “people with assets,” despite the money that they brought. Who was going to tell a road boss with dirty, broken fingers, watching touring cars travel through each summer, that he couldn’t shoot a deer when he needed to eat? A boy growing up at this time remembered the Ossipee Mountains

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A Castle in the Clouds:

“Drives to the Top of Ossipee Mountain” tourist brochure, 1917.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

as a “Robin Hood kind of place” – where local people would shoot a deer when they wanted to eat, no matter who owned the land, the season of year, the time of day or night. They’d pay a $10 fine and go right back out for another deer.8 Marion Goodwin remembered a cold December afternoon when Tom and Olive’s car had engine trouble in front of their house in Moultonborough.

Her mother, Lena, invited Olive into their home while the men worked on the engine.

Before long the car was fixed and Mr. Plant came into our living room to get her. He went over a corner, turned his back, and took something out of his pocket and gave it to me. My mother told me later she was glad I said “Thank you.” It was a five dollar bill, which in 1914 was a generous gift.

Olive and Lena maintained cordial relations for the rest of their lives.9 Despite his money and his aloofness, Tom Plant was from the region and had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Perhaps his idiosyncratic humbleness allowed him accommodation that would not have been so easily given to a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt.

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Lifestyle& Leisure Although Tom and Olive lived at Lucknow year-round, they still traveled extensively and conducted much of their business through Boston. The railroad to New York came through Meredith, on the other side of Lake Winnipesaukee, while the railway to Boston lay on the south shore in Wolfeboro. Olive’s reports to her former classmates indicate that she thought that their retreat was quaint and that she thought the main events in their life were society and travel. She described how they lived “in the wilds of New Hampshire” and the “woods are full of wild life, the deer come close to our stable and wander over our golf links, the little foxes live in the ledges, and an occasional bear makes us a rare visit.” Olive qualified: “I do not mean you to infer that we are so far from the madding crowd that we have to do without the comforts of life...in the winter we come down out of our mountain fastness and I have my hair marcelled and my nails manicured, get a few new clothes, and for a few months become quite civilized.”10

Hotel Royal Poinciana, Palm Beach, Florida, 1917, which was one of Tom Plant’s vacation spots. Courtesy of the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Since World War I made many of their favorite spots in Europe unsuitable for vacations, Tom and Olive spent winters “seeing America first.” Between 1913 and 1920, they traveled to sight-seeing spots, elite watering holes, golf clubs and wealthy resorts, including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Florida, Asheville (North Carolina), Bermuda, Hawaii, San Francisco, the

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Canadian Rockies, Nassau, and Cuba. Although they remained at home in 1918–1919, the winter was too warm for Olive’s snow sports, so they left for California, where Tom still maintained connections. Such travel could also have reflected the search for an American national identity, a trend that had become popular at this time of global conflict.11 Olive was an avid bird watcher and an active gardener, who worked in a glass hothouse below the lawn wall. This was no ordinary greenhouse, but was a custom-made, curved model, 100-feet (30 meters) long. She and Tom would argue about the best place to plant their flowers but always seemed to work out a compromise. In her postings to Wellesley College, Olive reported that her “war work” was limited to knitting (she and Tom both had relatives in the military). She showed an interest in social welfare and women’s suffrage but claimed that her distant “lifestyle” restricted her activities in these areas.

She seems to have complemented Tom’s progressive views.12 Tom was an active fisherman, hunter, and golfer. He had a private 18-hole golf course built in the meadow below his mansion. A story relates how he imported a shepherd, his dog and a flock of sheep from Scotland to keep the fairways trimmed. This seems to have been local exaggeration, like the apocryphal story of Italian stonemasons from Europe building his home. The Scot apparently came from a Boston employment agency. Aquatic sports were an important part of life on Lake Winnipesaukee. A four-mile (six kilometer) road led from the mansion through the woods to a well-equipped boathouse on the lake that held motorboats, canoes, rowboats and fishing boats, as well as a 36-foot (11-meter) laker, the Keen Kutter. A locally built runabout, it was reportedly longer and faster than any other on the lake.13 Tom’s big love remained horses.

Tom Plant playing hockey, Lake Winnipesauke, New Hampshire, circa A brief walk down stone steps and along a path led him to a 1920. Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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combination stable and garage. Built of oak and stone like the mansion, it was reinforced with ironwork and featured the latest in equipment, such as herringbone-laid cork brick floors, built-in hay and grain chutes, a central washdown area, and a drainage system. It had nine box stalls with brass railings, a tack room, and an adjoining outdoor exercise paddock. There were eight rooms and a bath for grooms and chauffeurs, along with a fourcar garage on the lower level. Tom enjoyed riding over his estate’s bridle paths, which stretched from the lake up two valleys to the summit of Mt. Shaw. He also raised Percherons on his farm in the valley.14 Although the couple valued solitude, Tom and Olive were known for their “gracious entertainment” of visiting dignitaries and local residents alike. The mansion was not built for many visitors at one time, having only two guest rooms and a dining room for twelve, but the accommodations were said to have been used often. While one toilet to a floor was considered normal, Tom had several installed, all with white-tiled walls and floors, characteristic of this “sanitation era.” There were problems with life in the country though, as when porcupines chewed his new wicker furniture, on the porch, which had been imported from England.15 Despite such annoyances, Olive wrote a poem called, “Lucknow,” a piece of doggerel that does nonetheless reflect their country-life ideal: On a foot hill of the mountain Stands a sturdy house of stone On the lawn in front, a fountain; And the house is vine o’ergrown.

The poem praises the view and enumerates, for eight more stanzas, how guests can find whatever pastimes their hearts desire – fishing, golf, riding, and walking. Tom echoed Olive in a catalogue of sports that included driving, tennis, canoeing, bathing, motor-boating, shooting, snowshoeing, skiing, sleighing, and tobogganing. He said that deer, raccoon and partridge had been carefully protected on his property in order to afford good hunting.16 Before long, however, Tom became restive with his life of leisure.

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Finance & Investments From 1914 to 1917, U.S. business prospered by selling to the combatant nations in the First World War (1914–1918). Upon U.S. entry into the conflict, inflation was compounded by a scarcity of money. Plant must have benefited from both phases of the war economy. His investments made money, and he had cash with which to afford an expensive lifestyle. There are rumors that Theodore Roosevelt’s family drew him into two investments during the wartime speculation. The story is that Plant followed Roosevelt’s counsel that Russian bonds would be profitable, so, in 1916, he bought at least $700,000 in Imperial bonds at 6½% interest for three years.17 Plant was also said to have invested a lot of money in sugar. Although I have not been able to document this, it is fairly easy to reconstruct what might have happened. The First World War caused a decline in European beet-sugar production and, although there was a large demand for sugar, profits were limited by wartime price controls. In 1919, the U.S. government lifted their price controls, and the cost of sugar rose dramatically. It was an opportunity for quick profits. Boston was a center of the sugar trade, which would narrow the field of potential investment to two major companies. The Aguirre Sugar Company of Puerto Rico had its headquarters in Boston and included Teddy Roosevelt’s brother-in-law on its board of directors. Boston’s United Fruit Company operated in Cuba and expanded its sugar production at the end of the First World War. I believe that Plant liked to mix business

William Plant Sr. and Margaret Dobbin Plant, Newton, Massachusetts, circa 1910.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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with pleasure and, according to Olive Plant’s reports, they visited Hawaii in 1915–1916 and Cuba in 1916–1917, both significant sugar producers. Thus, Tom could have easily joined others trying to cash in on post-war profits.18 The T.G. Plant Company continued after Tom’s departure and kept Plant’s innovations in operation. A witness to their operations at this time was Peter Limmer, a German immigrant who arrived in Boston in 1925. A master bootmaker, he took a job at the T.G. Plant factory, but was appalled by piecework and delivery boys going from station to station on roller skates. He quit the firm and began his own bootmaking shop in Jamaica Plain.19 Many of the old workers and management remained at the reorganized T.G. Plant Company, including Tom’s brother. William Plant Jr. and Thomas C. Plant went to work as clerks with their father after dropping out of Dartmouth College in 1909. Their kid brother Everett joined them at the factory two years later. They all lived at the large family home in Newton, where they kept a menagerie, including bears and exotic poultry. Their two dogs were named “Wonder” and “Worker,” a tribute to family success in the Shoe Machinery War. Newspapers reported William Sr. to be a millionaire.20 A glimpse into the life of privileged children and frustrated parents is seen in two marriage scandals that developed.

Amy married Edward Van Tassel Jr. in 1912. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ted came from a well-to-do family that ran a leather manufacturing company in Stoneham, Massachusetts. A regular visitor to Plant Wedding, Amy Plant/Edward family gatherings, the couple seemed to Van Tassel Jr. in Newton, Massachussetts,1912 be well matched. They had two children, Courtesy of Kenneth Plant. who were named for Amy’s parents – William in 1916 and Margaret in 1918.

Ted began a new company in 1916 that made chemicals for the tanning industry. They seemed to have a happy union, but something went wrong. In 1923, Ted abandoned his wife and children. Amy moved in with her parents, who were by then living full time at Tuftonboro Neck in New Hampshire.21

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In 1914, Everett fell in love with an office worker at the factory. In addition to clerical work, Phyllis Maguire had also been a model, providing her foot for images used in company shoe catalogues. William Sr. told his 20-year old son that, if he was thinking about marriage, then “it was time for him to go out into the world and demonstrate his ability to support himself first.” So, Everett quit his job, moved out of the family home and went to Washington, D.C., where he took a job as a clerk in the Hotel Winston. A few weeks later, Phyllis met him there and they got married.

The story was humorously covered in Washington newspapers. Everett went his own way after this break with the family business, becoming a construction contractor around the country.22 The two remaining brothers were brought into a new enterprise: Plant Brothers & Company. The elder Tom and William served as silent partners, seeking to provide the boys with practical experience, so they could mature into successful businessmen. The company was originally organized to make women’s shoes, but the outbreak of the “Great War” in 1914 enlarged their scope of action.

It was generally felt that the United States would enter the conflict, so, in anticipation of such government contracts, the firm prepared for “manufacture both of shoes and of war supplies.”23 A key person in these operations was Alfred Grover, who had been a director at the old T.G. Plant Company. Grover was recruited

by Tom and William to provide leadership, joining Plant Brothers & Company as vice-president and general manager in 1914.

Professional shoe manufacturing journals attributed the company’s Alfred Crosby Grover, 1919. success to his experience and hardCourtesy of Elliott & Martha Grover, work.24 Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

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Grover moved to Manchester, New Hampshire, where the Plant Brothers factory was situated. Seeing a potential for using shoe machines in making canvas and leather equipment, Grover left for Washington to seek business. He succeeded in securing federal contracts to make knapsacks, leggings, holsters, horse harnesses, bandoliers, water buckets, gas mask containers, cases and other materials for the military. Production boomed.

They opened another factory in Manchester, as well as five facilities in South Boston, Lynn, and Newburyport. Grover managed the factories and contracts by himself, as the younger Plant brothers left to join the army and navy. By the end of First World War, the firm had supplied a third of all such supplies and received a citation from the War Department.25 In addition to these three investments, Tom Plant also began two major construction projects. It was a time of important decision-making that would make or break his future.

Plant Brothers & Company, Newburyport, Massachussetts, circa 1920.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.26

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The Old Folks Home Although few of Tom and William’s immediate family remained in Maine, they had kept up connections to their hometown. The brothers conducted some land transactions there. Newspapers reported on Tom’s career, and he ran shoe ads in local newspapers. Locals reminisced about Tom as he became increasingly famous, deriving vicarious satisfaction from his success. It is unknown when Tom conceived the idea of building a home for old people in Bath, but there were precedents.27 It has been said that Tom built the Old Folks Home in memory of his parents, especially his mother, Sophie Rodrigue, who had worked so hard in his childhood. However, he was also building on an existing tradition of philanthropy, where endowed institutions had become well established in the area – the Bath Military & Naval Orphan Asylum, the Old Ladies Home, and the Home for Old Couples. However, these facilities had

Old Folks Home, Bath, Maine, circa 1920.

Courtesy of the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

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gradually lost their ability to sustain themselves, and so Tom decided to arrange for capital maintenance in a more lasting fashion. His good friend, Fred Emery, had served as a director of homes for the elderly, which might have also served to give him practical ideas.28 Whatever his reasons, Tom bought land from Aramede Tarbox in 1916. The Tarbox estate had been the site of a marine hospital, south of the Bath city center, and this purchase indicates that Tom was building onto an already recognized public institution. He had a long term connection with the Tarbox family and would place at least one person in his Old Folks Home at their request. The trustees of the home all came from the community.29 After the land acquisition, Tom’s friend, Jim Lincoln, assembled seven Bath men to serve as trustees. He also found a local lawyer and judge, Walter Glidden, to supervise the incorporation. Glidden arranged for charitable, non-tax status and guided the incorporation through the Maine Legislature. The charter was similar to other homes for the elderly in Maine. He also arranged for free water from the Bath Water District and the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Glidden kept Tom posted about the developments, the correspondence chasing him through New York and winter resorts in Nassau and Palm Beach.30 Once the incorporation was underway, the board of trustees authorized construction. Designed by the Boston firm of Coolidge & Carlson, the result was a large Colonial Revival structure at Hospital Point, a “commanding” site overlooking the Kennebec River. The trolley line to downtown Bath conveniently passed by it. The structure stood 3½ stories high, was 126 feet long by 36 feet wide (38 x 11 meters); it had double-planking of spruce and cypress, with three large verandahs, as well as many innovations, as at Lucknow. It was outfitted with a modern kitchen, spacious and beautifully finished living and dining rooms, a men’s smoking room and piazza, an elevator, and telephones. Tom’s fear of fire led to installation of fire hoses on each floor, an automatic sprinkler system, and a fire detection service.

He personally contributed stain, andirons, and lawn sprayers. The facility could house 35 residents and was one of the most modern buildings in Maine. It cost almost $80,000. Tom endowed it with 3300 shares of United Shoe Machinery Company common capital stock worth nearly $150,000.

He deeded the building and property to the corporation, which was officially named the “Old Folks Home in Bath.”31

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Tom Plant addressed the trustees at one of the early meetings and spoke about the importance of moral character and neediness in the selection of residents. Applicants had to be reasonably healthy, as the Old Folks Home was not meant to be a nursing facility. They had to be residents of Bath, without means of support from family or friends, at least seventy years old, unless the board voted differently, and “no person shall be admitted who is found to have lived a life of dissipation, or is morally undesirable.� An

Rules, Old Folks Home, 1921. Courtesy of the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

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agreement was signed by an applicant upon admittance, and an application fee charged – the amount depending upon the means of family, friends, and the applicant. A three-month probationary period followed. All property was conveyed to the Old Folks Home before residency became permanent, as well as any property acquired after an applicant’s acceptance.

All resident needs were then provided for and an allowance could be arranged. If a resident left, their entrance fee and property were given back to them, minus expenses incurred by their stay. A grievance process was put in place, but a resident could be expelled for a variety of reasons, from being “a source of discord” to “mischief-making.” Visitors and temporary residents were allowed.32 An executive committee met monthly and directed the business of the Old Folks Home – from residents’ cleanliness to sexual conduct. Another committee of twenty-three “associate members” from Bath reviewed applications and made recommendations about who should be admitted.

The procedure was slow. In the first year, only fourteen residents entered and two of them left after three months. Upon admittance, Tom ordered that a resident be given a silver or pewter napkin ring with their initials and a design engraved upon it. Bath community members helped the home in various ways – a baby grand piano and magazines were donated, concerts were given for the residents and holidays were observed, such as the traditional Maine custom for the Fourth of July of a dinner of fresh salmon and green peas.33 Although Tom was elected to the board and executive committee on an annual basis, it was an honorary position. He only came to meetings when he had something to say. Nonetheless, the board periodically referred questions to him for clarification, in order to ascertain his original intent and let him present opinions. Admission policies especially needed refinement.34 It was probably the largest single philanthropy of his life, but it had the controlled atmosphere of his factories. Those with an independent spirit were forced to conform or were weeded out. Tom’s dedication hangs in the foyer and is a bold proclamation of paternal capitalism: This Home is founded on my sincere belief that those who have lived honest, industrious lives and are without means or friends to care for them, have earned the right to be cared for. Only through the labor and expenditure of others is it possible for business and professional men to succeed; therefore it is the duty of the strong and successful to care for the deserving, aged poor.35

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Tom occasionally asked for a waiver of the home’s admission policy. In 1929, he sought entry for Boston resident William Manson. It is unclear who this was, perhaps a boyhood friend, an early workmate, or an old employee. However, within two years, Tom had to write “Billy” a letter, scolding him for abusive behavior and for implying that Tom was “behind” him. Tom chided him on his professed Christianity. In 1929 and 1941, the trustees rejected William Roderick’s application for admission, but, in 1937, accepted his wife, Jane Roderick, on Tom’s request. While Tom reported that he had grown up with Jane, who was a “good girl” from a “clean respectable family,” he said that she had married a “cheap dissolute fellow by the name of William Roderick.” Tom neglected to say that William was his cousin.36 Besides making policy and decisions about residency for the home, the trustees became increasingly involved with financial affairs. In addition to Tom’s original endowment, the home received dividends, interest, residents’ property, inheritances, and gifts. Although Tom had rejected fiscal ability as a criterion for selection, the trustees still had to supervise rental and sale of in-coming property and needed to invest the return on it for the home’s benefit. They invested in certificates of deposit from the Bath Trust Company, as well as in diverse stocks and bonds, such as from Illinois Bell Telephone, the Little Androscoggin Water Power Company, the Kansas City Terminal Railway, and the Dominion of Canada, along with government bonds from the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick.

In 1936, the trustees invested $35,000 of the home’s “surplus funds.” Four years later, they were consulting with Moody’s Investor Service and voted to remove Section Two of their state charter, which limited them to hold under $400,000 of property.37 The Old Folks Home had done well indeed.

Tom had provided the home with autonomy, but that autonomy could be abused, especially with quickly growing assets. His presence marked the importance of one trustees meeting on a spring evening in 1923. The minutes reported that J. Edward Drake resigned as trustee-treasurer and that Plant recommended for a financial institution to take over the treasurer’s job. The trustees approved this and voted for an audit of Drake’s books.

Little more is said about these events, except that the trustees selected the Bath Trust Company as the home’s financial agent, authorized a sum of no more than $5000 be borrowed, filled the vacated trustee position, and authorized more trustees to be elected.38 However, the District Attorney in the Sagadahoc County court house told me of a historic poster about Tom

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Broadside, Bath, Maine, circa 1926. Courtesy of the Richmond Police Department, Richmond, Maine.

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Plant on a wall at the Richmond Police Department that gave dramatic background of what had appeared to be only “business as usual.”

In 1926, Wilbur Oliver, ex-sheriff of Sagadahoc County, issued a broadside against J. Edward Drake, an ex-mayor running again for public office. Both men had been board members at the Old Folks Home. Oliver reproduced a condemning letter from Tom Plant and reported how Drake, as treasurer of the Old Folks Home, had taken 88 gallons (333 liters) of liquor meant for the residents and left a deficit of $26,500 – requiring additional funds to be solicited to paint the building. This incident had taken place just as Prohibition was being implemented in the United States and, although Maine had a variety of prohibition since 1851, medicinal and other uses were allowed – the implication was that Drake had taken it for illegal purposes. Plant had forced Drake’s resignation and, in the subsequent investigation, the account books had been destroyed. This poster shows that Plant dabbled in Bath politics and resorted to public pronouncements and pressure tactics, as he had done with the United Shoe Machinery Company.39 Despite his absence from Bath, he was vigilant.

In its first decade, the Old Folks Home increased its numbers to almost capacity. In 1927, it had 36 residents – 15 women and 21 men, who came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Although the home admitted husbands and wives, none of these residents appear to have been spouses.

Their ages ranged from 56 to 101, with an average age of 73 years of age.

The Old Folks Home listed residents’ life expectancies, indicating a planned financial program. That year, for example, five residents died.40 Tom was said to have been “deeply interested in making life easier to live for his fellow men.” Although he made other gifts to “various humanitarian causes,” the fact that he chose to endow a new community home rather than contribute to an existing one shows that he had something to prove to the Yankee community of his boyhood. The Old Folks Home in Bath has survived and prospered, where it is still listed as one of the city’s major institutions. It has now been renamed the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home.41 The Bald Peak Country Club Although Tom Plant valued his privacy, he was also a social person.

Despite his origins, he did not fit into local society – both he and they kept their distance. Although neighboring Wolfeboro is billed as “the oldest summer resort in America,” Plant probably did not get satisfaction

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from summer people, despite his brother’s presence at nearby Tuftonboro Neck. It was a long way from the Algonquin Club in Boston, in both miles and camaraderie. As with other ventures, Tom embarked on a unique and costly solution. He decided to build an elegant country club on his property that he could visit or from which he could invite the people with whom he wanted to socialize.

Tom had early conceived of this idea, but he did not act on it until 1919.

The site he chose was on some of the first property he had purchased, six miles (ten kilometers) downhill from his mansion, on the shore of the lake.

It consisted of 750 acres (300 hectares) of heavily wooded land that rose from the beach to a plateau by the village road. A club member described it as a “paradise of cool, fresh breezes and [a] glorious view of lake with the quiet mountains beyond.” Tom had acquired a large development called Birch Hill, which might have given him the idea for this project. He hoped that the club would become the “most beautiful and best planned” of its kind in the country and the “American St. Andrews. ”42 In order to facilitate the land transactions, Tom created a “corporation of convenience” that he called the Bald Peak Realty Company. He hired a local developer known as a “get-along-with-it-now” man, as well as two experts in golf course design. They began work on what they called the “Oak Hill Development.” It is said that many workers from the Lucknow job continued with the country club project. It was a “Herculean task” for “men, horses, and dynamite.” Often two layers of rock had to be removed. Workers uncovered quartz shot through with fool’s gold on the second tee and they used it for chimney and pillar construction. Tom was “impatient with idle workmen, and was often heard to say that they thought nothing but pay day and the setting sun.” He would stand on Lucknow’s balcony with binoculars and watch the progress. Recollections indicate that, as with other projects, everything came under his personal supervision, down to the interior decor and linen.43 The Bald Peak Country Club was incorporated in August 1920 and cost almost $1 million. Plant conveyed 5588 acres (2261 hectares) of land and buildings to the corporation in return for 200 certificates of ownership, which he planned to sell as memberships in the club, so as to recoup his investment.

In other words, he had created a land trust with a majority of his estate. The following month, the first officers and executive board were elected. The Bald Peak Country Club opened on 1 August 1921. Its facilities consisted of a clubhouse with dining room, two dormitories for the hired help, a garage

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for twenty cars and their chauffeurs, a boathouse, stables, tennis courts, nine cottages, and a challenging 18-hole, 74-par golf course.44 From 1920 onward, the Bald Peak Country Club published a series of beautifully illustrated booklets intended to attract members. Pages described the ease with which one could escape the metropolitan turmoil of New York and Philadelphia and come to Lake Winnipesaukee. Boats would rendezvous with weary executives at the train stations across the lake and bring them to the comfort of their cottages at Bald Peak.

Once there, members were within easy reach of other resorts and clubs.

Active membership certificates were limited to 200 and cost $2500, while subscribers could pay $200 for club privileges for a season. Tom considered this “not too high for what was offered.” The cottages were either for sale or rent, but the deeds prohibited saloons, asylums, charitable institutions, hogs, cattle, or poultry. Members could dine in the clubhouse, where dress was quite formal and ladies were said to practically wear ball gowns to dinner each evening. Tom’s vision was for “a colony of fine, genial, and energetic people” selected by a careful screening process.45 As a club member later observed: He wanted it for members or guests who were vigorous, decorative if possible, and who did things well. He liked to see golf clubs and tennis rackets swung properly and he employed professionals to teach those who were not adept at such things but were willing to learn. He admired a woman who mounted a horse gracefully and rode it with a gentle hand.

He liked to see a man bring a gun up to his shoulder and drop his bird with a quick sure aim, or watch someone play a small-mouthed bass on a light fly rod without muffing it.46 Tom purposely focused on developing “the social amenities of the place.” Since Henry Ford’s mass-produced automobiles had given common folks the chance to travel, “mass replaced class” in formerly exclusive reserves. So, Tom saw his creation as a viable alternative: “Automobiles have so changed former quiet, enjoyable summer resorts by increased traffic and congestion that many of the best people are looking for more desirable locations, and Bald Peak, with its privacy and all that nature has done for it to which man had to add but little, offers a most desirable place for a summer home.”47 Tom was adamant with his dislikes at the club. He did not want “stout people unless they were outstanding in other ways as well,” nor did he want

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“a lot of old, sleepy people sitting around on the verandah” or “the club over-run with children.” He prohibited the sale of liquor, could not stand “Florida orange juice when New Hampshire blueberries were in season,” and “objected strenuously” to the use of “dirty words.”48

Bald Peak Country Club, clubhouse, circa 1920.

George Wesley Perry photograph in Country Life, October 1924: 16-f.

Courtesy of Cristina Ashjian.

Despite his reported intolerance for children, Tom built facilities and hired instructors to care for them. His promotional literature warmly recommended the benefits of raising young people in such a place as Bald Peak. A lack of local boys to serve as caddies in the Moultonborough area allowed girls to break into this job and, in 1928, the club solved the “problem” by setting up a Boy Scout camp on the club grounds and drafting the boys as caddies. This subsequently grew into a caddies’ camp.49 Within three months of opening, only eight memberships were sold in the country club. So, in August 1922, an exhibition golf match was arranged. It featured a famous U.S. amateur team of Francis Ouimet and Jesse Guilford against a renowned professional British team of John Taylor and Sandy Herd. The U.S. amateurs won, but it was not a financial

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success. By the end of 1922, Tom provided $260,000 to keep the club afloat, but he still needed approval from the executive committee for all major decisions. So, he took over the club’s outstanding debts, and, in return, the club gave him nine cottages and all land not immediately in use, then leased the club to his company for five years. Tom felt that there would be 200 members paying $200 annual dues by then, which could maintain the club. The only reason such a plan made sense is if a faction within the executive committee had opposed him. And, indeed, shortly afterwards, at an emergency meeting, the president and secretary were replaced with Tom’s allies.50 Two years later, the country club board canceled its lease to the Bald Peak Realty Company and elected a new slate of officers. They retained only Tom Plant as treasurer. It would seem that he desired this withering away of power, since he agreed to cover the club’s 1925–1926 expenses.51 Although still in control, such a decision fit his contradictory beliefs in democracy and autocracy, and indicates that the club’s crisis of 1922–1924 had passed. The Plant autocracy also waned out of necessity – new members and investors would only join if they could participate in decision-making.

In 1924, the Bald Peak Country Club numbered sixty members and began new efforts at recruitment. The next year, an all-expenses-paid Columbus Day weekend (October 11–12) for an exclusive group of candidates turned into a fiasco when a freak blizzard struck. The board increased the membership fee and dues, and then sent out invitations, booklets and even the Harvard University football coach, Percy Houghton, on a tour of the United States. They also established a “trial dwelling” for prospective members and an “associate membership” category. Despite such creativity, the selection process itself was self-defeating – by the time prospective member’s “past history, present assets and future potentials” were investigated by Houghton and Plant, the candidate had usually lost interest. The club was considered by many to be too inaccessible and remote. Nonetheless, their efforts gained some small success, such their recruitment of Dr. Frank Lahey, founder of the Lahey Clinic in Boston.52 Elizabeth Wilkin, the club’s chronicler, characterized the early members as “a group of extremely human, vigorous, imaginative, colorful, amusing, and essentially kindly people, all of whom had their peculiarities, some of whom had intrigues, affairs, divorces (21 to date) hushed-up incidents, feuds and a few tragedies.” Early membership was diverse and came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The one thing they seem to have had

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in common was that they were self-made men, like Plant himself – men who had worked hard as industrialists and entrepreneurs to get what they had. Some members were his friends, like Fred Emery who had a summer home in the area.53 The problems that the club had experienced in the mid1920s were to a certain extent problems Tom Plant was experiencing in his personal life.

Retirement under Fire Plant modified his empire over the years. With the Bald Peak Country Club in place, he abandoned the eighteen-hole golf course in the meadow below his mansion. By the early 1920s, the Plants reduced their twenty-odd employees to seven – three domestics, a gardener/houseman, a chauffeur/ stableman, and a stablehand. Another man cared for the cows, kept-up the roads, and cut their year’s supply of wood and ice. By 1924, the estate was hooked into a waterpower company grid. Plant ran overhead lines from the public road to the stables, but buried them to the mansion, “to avoid an ugly look.”54 Some of these changes were made out of economic necessity.

When the revolutionaries defeated the Czarists in the Russian Civil War, it became apparent that Plant’s bonds would not be redeemed by the new Soviet Union. His other investments also went down in the wake of current events.

The postwar boom in sugar was followed by its collapse to an all-time low, called la danza de los milliones, where a $100 share in Cuban cane sugar was worth 50¢ in the 1930s Bill, Tom & Everett Plant, circa 1920.

– if a stockholder was lucky.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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Historian Muriel McAvoy-Weissman wrote: “Almost all sugar companies lost heavily in the early 20s and never really recovered, the depression that hit in 1929 only burying the corpses.”55 It would appear that Tom had invested in a company that had been “merely” devastated since his real economic problems didn’t begin until 1928–1929.

Problems also developed with Plant Brothers & Company. Tom had given his protégé, Alfred Grover, management of the firm, with an option to buy after five years. Grover was also to teach Tom’s nephews about business.

The training had been an exercise in futility – the youths “did not know the business, had too much money, and were in reality playboys.” They had also left the business to join the military during the war. Grover died suddenly in 1920, which caused a major crisis in leadership. William Plant Sr. moved to Manchester to become more directly involved in the business.

The boys shifted positions within the company, but became entangled in a large federal tax case. William Sr. put his estate on Lake Winnipesaukee up for sale in 1924. Around 1927–1928, Plant Brothers & Company closed their operations. William Sr. moved with his wife, divorced daughter Amy and her children to Beverly Hills, California. The three boys went their own way.56 It appears that, whatever profits Tom had derived from Plant Brothers & Company during the World War, he lost them after the death of his friend Alfred Grover.

Tom’s poor investments began to take a toll and were exacerbated by the 1920–1921 depression. The problems of recruiting members to the club reflected the national economy. He mounted a campaign to divest himself and his brother of their property. Tom hired professional photographer George Wesley Perry and composed an elaborate text. He then produced a series of handsome booklets titled, For Sale: “Lucknow”: A Mountain and Lake Estate of Six Thousand Three Hundred Acres. In October 1924, he published an eighteen-page version of it in Country Life magazine, an early journal featuring lifestyles of the rich and famous. The ad appeared as if it were a feature story about Lucknow, the Club Colony, and William Plant’s home at Tuftonboro. Tom’s needs were not yet desperate enough to be tempered by humility: “No prospective purchaser will be considered who is not a man of wealth and of high standing and repute. This estate will not be of interest to those who are looking for a bargain.” 57 Although not on the ropes, he began to compromise his lifestyle. In April 1927, the board of directors of the Bald Peak Country Club replaced Tom as treasurer and, eight months later, he resigned from the board. The

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financial separation took three months. The club transferred a majority of its property back to him the next year, in addition to $146,250 and six cottages. Tom needed still more money. He almost immediately took a $150,000 mortgage on the cottages, revived the campaign to sell Lucknow, and placed a full-page ad in the New York Times. He hired a New York realtor and dropped the requirement for reputable buyers. His desperation was palpable: “This estate will be sold completely furnished (including paintings, bric-a-brac, etc.) and equipped in every detail.”58 As before, Plant attributed the sale to a desire for travel, which might have been believable, but for his other transactions.

Despite their setbacks, Tom and Olive Plant continued to patronize the club. They would come down from their mountain to play golf with the members, and an invitation to Lucknow was never refused. He had had the Ford Motor Company build him a special car to carry many people so that he and his guests could be driven to Bald Peak itself.59 He could occasionally be lured into the clubhouse after a game of golf to entertain his companions with stories.60 Plant had a distant, unpredictable side, countered by an easy-going gregariousness. Local people were still uncertain as to how they would be greeted by him, as stories relate.

In the early 1930s, Willis Wakefield shot a deer up on the mountain. As he dragged the deer down the hillside and over the plateau, he looked up to see Tom Plant riding down on him, across the clearing, on his black mare.

Plant reined in, looked down at the dead animal and observed: “Good lookin’ deer.” He smiled and continued: “Come on up to the house for a drink. My man will drive your deer home for you in the pick-up.” Willis said that Plant poured a good drink. Despite conflict with the Lee family, Martha Oliver remembered that she and her mother went to visit the cemetery in the 1930s.

Suddenly, a “big Cadillac” came down the mountain road. “It stopped and a fast-walking man walked right down to us. He was a short man, straight as a die.” He said they were welcome anywhere on the estate.61 Tom seems to have begun to get into irreversible trouble in 1927–1928.

The country club development finished his fortune to such an extent that he could not even afford its annual dues. When he submitted his resignation in 1935, the board presented Tom and Olive with life memberships. However, there was a change of ambiance. Club members were themselves dominant

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businessmen who resented Plant’s inability to listen to advice. George Elkins, a Philadelphia financier, showed this attitude in his observation about Plant’s investment in Russian bonds: “The god damn fool, I told him not to buy them.” Members who had tolerated Plant’s hard-headedness and inability to work with others when he had money to spend, thought him of “not much use” and just a “pain in the ass” after he went broke.62 His estate and club had stimulated his inventive capacities. In 1932, he patented a seeding machine for golf links and lawns. He delighted in reading history and biography, hunting, fishing, and riding. He kept “exercised and fit.” A club member remembered Plant as “a boyish looking man, with white hair, ruddy complexion and blue eyes...a country squire, usually astride a horse.”63 In appearance he was a healthy, handsome and finely-built man of small stature who even at eighty held himself in a square-shouldered, straightforward way. His blue eyes which always seemed to be twinkling through the pince-nez were full of interest in everyone and everything.

He was invariably well-groomed in impeccably good taste.64 It is not known to what political party Plant belonged after the demise of the Progressive Party. He did, however, vote in local elections. A resident remembered growing-up in a house next to the Moultonborough town hall. On one Election Day, in the late 1920s or early 1930s, as he watched the voters coming and going, a big touring car pulled up. A woman stayed behind the wheel while a well-dressed man in a derby hat stept down.

Whispers ran through the hall like running water, audible to the little boy next door: “Mr. Plant, Mr. Plant, Mr. Plant…” The great man had arrived.65 The Plants’ domestic staff was reduced to three or four employees by the 1930s, and they became jack-of-all-trades. Despite economic problems, Tom’s first priority was to pay his workers on time. He maintained his optimism and work habits. His driver, Fred Davis, would synchronize his watch with Plant’s timepiece. When Plant would say he wanted to be picked up at eight o’clock, Davis would idle the car around the corner of the mansion at 7:55 and drive-up just as Plant stept out of the front door and looked at his watch. Local people observed with understatement: “Mr. Plant placed some value on punctuality.”66

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As the 1920s wore into the Great Depression, Plant’s investment portfolio sprang leaks and his liquid assets began to dry up. He did not successfully make the transition from industrialist to financier. Although he had done very well with an industry in which he had worked his whole life and knew from the shop floor to the head office, he lacked experience in the larger economy and became victimized with a lot of other nouveaux riches. By the time of the stock market crash of 1929, Tom Plant had already lost a considerable amount of capital. He had poured money into his personal estate, the Old Folks Home, the Bald Peak Country Club, and bad investments. He had become “land rich, money poor.” As the situation grew worse, Plant was torn between reducing his lifestyle or hoping for a miraculous recovery. His problems would only get worse.

Downhill Spiral Tom Plant twisted and turned in a complex maze of mortgages, trying to use his property to cover his expenses. He again tried to sell his estate, but the best offer came in $100,000 short of his $750,000 asking price. It was said that his conditions were “unrealistic,” presumably referring to real estate covenants he imposed to protect the estate’s trees and other resources.67 The final act in his drama consisted of irretrievable mortgages.

In 1928, Plant mortgaged his holdings for $150,000 to Robert Clayton in Boston. The next year, Clayton sold the mortgage to Joseph Emery, a retired businessman and a member of the Bald Peak Country Club. In 1930, Emery extended Plant another $40,000 on his mortgage and bought some of his cottages. Local people also became involved in Plant’s financial affairs. In 1933, William Britton, a justice of the peace in Wolfeboro, became trustee for a group of creditors, who took a second mortgage on Plant’s property for almost $50,000. Even William Robinson, whom Tom had allowed to bring tours onto his property in 1917, loaned him small sums.68 One of the transactions that revealed the depths of his crisis was with his charity in Bath.

In 1935, Tom met with three trustees of the Old Folks Home in Bath and told them that he was “financially cleaned out.” Although he already had two mortgages on his property, he said that it “also included a large amount of stumpage of considerable value.” Based on that timber, Plant asked the Old Folks Home for a loan of their surplus capital of $36,000. The trustees, at a special meeting, agreed to make the loan, if it was secured by a third mortgage on his New Hampshire property.69

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On Plant’s insistence, the trustees shopped around for a 4% loan rather than one at the normal rate of 6% interest. Plant asked for payment in two $15,000 bank drafts and $6000 cash placed in a private checking account. The importance of a 2% interest difference and a need to hide the transaction from other creditors shows the extent of Plant’s financial distress. His need for secrecy became even more apparent when he sent a mortgage drawn up by Judge Britton, one based on his second mortgage.

The trustees returned it, because it used the formula of “one dollar and other valuable consideration,” which masked the transaction price. Judge Glidden wrote that “this mortgage wouldn’t be worth a damn under the Maine law” – it would be for one-dollar, exactly. Glidden said that Plant’s attorney must have either known or not known this, which had made “a rather unfortunate impression” on the trustees. Plant apologized. He explained that it had been his habit to use the one-dollar formula in small house-lot transactions and he had not wanted Judge Britton to know about the size of the loan, because Britton might insist it be used to pay off the second mortgage. Plant had the mortgage revised at a different law office and resubmitted it to the Old Folks Home.70 Glidden was the only lawyer on the Board of Trustees of the Old Folks Home. He and another trustee had originally voted against the proposed loan and continued to advise the other trustees of their responsibilities.

When the issue of the one-dollar mortgage came up, the other trustees began to get “cold feet.” They finally listened to Glidden’s advice and sought outside opinion, under the smokescreen of their ignorance of New Hampshire law. Glidden’s letter to Portsmouth attorney, Charles Batchelder, and a telephone call to the Maine Attorney General’s Office reveal their actual assessment of Plant’s situation.71 Plant was “up against it” but honestly believed that he could repay the loan in a year or two. None of the trustees believed this and they knew that the $36,000 would amount to a gift. They had gone along with the deal until it became apparent that they could be individually liable to prosecution for maladministration of a trust fund. Glidden told Batchelder that the trustees felt caught between “love and duty” and admitted that they were “passing the buck.” The Attorney General’s Office replied that such a third mortgage would be “unsuitable.” Batchelder sent the trustees two official opinions to show Plant, as well as a private letter.72 Batchelder said that Plant’s property “must have very little marketability, if any at all.” He felt it would be easier to sell his land in parcels rather than en masse, but such sub-division was prevented by the other mortgages: “A

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time may come when Mr. Roosevelt’s fifty-nine cent dollar and inflation will give us a new crop of millionaires, but until then I do not know who would buy such a place.” Batchelder felt that it would not be possible to sell any summer place in New Hampshire for $240,000 (the first two mortgages) and thought Plant’s estate “one of the whitest of white elephants.” The trustees revoked their offer of the loan, but were willing to reimburse Plant for his expenses during the negotiations.73 The rapidity of his negotiations with the Old Folks Home in a two month period, and the fact that only two years before he had discussed additional endowments with them, suggest an immediate crisis in Plant’s finances in the summer and fall of 1935. Plant and his Bald Peak Realty Company also fell into arrears with local taxes. At first Plant covered them with small property sales to his first wife and the Old Folks Home, but eventually Emery was forced to pay them in order to maintain the primacy of his mortgage. Emery began to get impatient. In 1937, he announced his intent to foreclose against three of Plant’s cottages at the country club.74

Family visit to Lucknow, circa 1939. Children of Everett Plant – Marjorie, Everett & William – after a move from California back to New England.

Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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Under such stress, Tom began to take a more sentimental interest in life. He renewed contact with his family in Maine. Some visited him, but the deference in which they held him was apparent. A grand-niece reminisced: “I remember my mother telling me that I had to curtsy when I met him...I remember him sitting on the porch...I think the thing that impressed me the most was he rang for tea and a maid brought it.” On one outing in the early 1930s, he visited his second cousin in Augusta, Lawrence Roderick. Death complicated his longing for connection. His friend, Fred Emery died in 1933. His older sister, Frances, died in Bath in 1924 and his younger brother, William, died at Lucknow in 1934. Tom consolidated the scattered graves of his closest family members into a central plot and erected a monument for them in Bath.75 His brother’s children and their families continued to visit at Lucknow.

Olive’s brother, Phil Dewey, visited Lucknow in 1940, while attending his 20th class reunion at nearby Dartmouth College. He brought his teenage son, John, who spent a happy week at Lucknow. Tom took him around the area and gave him a canoe and a .22 Winchester rifle. One night, at supper, they talked about John’s application to attend Dartmouth, and Tom responded: “Why would you want to go to college when look at how I succeeded without going to college.” John knew about their financial distress and remembered thinking “is that success?” but said nothing.76 In some ways this conversation was diagnostic. Tom had been the ultimate modernist, but, as the years passed and society changed, blind spots developed in his progressive views.

The economic calamity gathered speed. In August 1939, the Old Folks Home gave him a short-term $3000 loan, secured by a mortgage on 50 acres (20 hectares) of unencumbered New Hampshire property. Late in repaying it, the trustees gently reminded him of the “maturity date” two months later. In December 1939, Tom appeared at the Old Folks Home in person and asked for a loan of $63,975 at another special meeting. They held him off.77 It is easy to see why Tom began to take a more philosophical interest in nature. It was all he had left.78 His love of the outdoors became almost a religion, as he expressed it himself: Each day here on my mountain I feel that which nothing else can give me, as I view this beautiful work of nature; and when alone at the top of nature’s cathedral, “my mountain,” surrounded by forests, then I feel through my whole being, the infinite sublime Creator, and the littleness of man.79

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Tom was said to have “a love for and knowledge of nature which few of us possess. This brought to him deep pleasure and humble recognition of a divine power which creates and controls all things.” He even sacrificed his lifestyle for the reverence of his forest. Fred Tobey, a friend and lumber magnate, estimated that $750,000 of timber could be harvested without damage to the estate. On the verge of losing everything, he agreed to sell it.

Papers were drawn up and presented to him at Lucknow by the contractor and the lawyer. “He picked up his pen to sign and then put it down again and refused.” Everyone tried to convince him to sell. “Tom stated that he said he would rather die broke than to sell off any trees.”80 By 1941, almost all of Tom’s real estate had been sold or mortgaged, often several times over, and the Town of Moultonborough once again repossessed his property for unpaid taxes. Many of the mortgages came from friends.

Although most of his estate workers left when his finances faltered, some loyal staff remained. It was even said that his cook loaned him money.

By 1941, Tom was in debt for almost half a million dollars and living on people’s good will. The good will was running out. Some local folks gained satisfaction from seeing the Earl of Ossipee Park brought down, derisively referring to him as “the town pauper.” In reflecting on his life, Tom, himself, ranged from pessimism to optimism. He told a friend that “All my difficulties have been the result of my stubbornness – in fact my (damn) stubbornness!”

Another friend asked him if he wasn’t sorry that he hadn’t put some of his money away. Tom said “that when his time came to leave this earth that he was sure that he wouldn’t be allowed to take any money with him...his only regret was that he wished that he had made twice as much money so that he could have spent twice as much!”81 It seems that Joseph Emery held off from foreclosing on the property out of friendship, but, after he died in March 1941, his executors prepared to put it up for auction. They sent Plant notice of this intent on 11 July 1941, but he was in the midst of a two-month illness from which he would not recover.

Tom died three days after surgery, in Laconia, New Hampshire, on 25 July 1941. He was 82-years old. His remains were cremated at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and returned to New Hampshire.

Friends had to take up a collection to bury him, and his ashes were either buried in Bath or scattered over his beloved estate – perhaps both.82 The City of Bath flew their flag in City Park at half-mast. Family friend, Mary Case, published a booklet for Tom’s memorial service, “A Tribute to a Brave Heart,” and dedicated it to Olive. She observed: “[N]o adverse blow of fate was able to break the optimism and patience, which together with his courage and originality, were the essence of the man.”83

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Postscript Although Tom Plant said that he wanted to leave his estate to the presidents of the United States for a summer White House, it was not to be. The estate was too far in debt. His wife was his sole inheritor and administrator of the estate. She had difficulty even maintaining herself. In addition to the Emery mortgage and taxes, Tom had nearly $50,000 in debts and less than $5000 in assets. In order to clear the estate for foreclosure, Emery’s executors paid the accumulated back taxes on Plant’s property. A public auction took place on 11 August 1941. The executors bought the property themselves for $111,000. They immediately began selling portions of the country club property. Olive Plant agreed to cede the mortgaged real estate and the structures on it to them for $1500. This reduced the existing property to an almost eight acre (three hectare) lot in Moultonborough, which Olive sold the next year for $600. She donated pictures from their estate to the Old Folks Home in Bath, including Alphonse Jongers’ portrait of Tom and the Alexander Pope painting of his favorite horse. The next year, Olive returned to her family home in Illinois. People said that after Tom Plant died, it was as if the family vanished. They dropped out of sight, as from the face of the earth.84 This disappearance, of course, did not happen. Olive returned for a visit to her home in Toulon, Illinois a few months after Tom’s death and stayed there to help her family. Her father died in 1943, after which she and her mother wintered in California. Olive returned to Moultonborough for short visits. In 1948, she asked the Old Folks Home in Bath to make her a loan, based on Tom’s endowment. It was not approved, but they offered her accommodation as a resident. Olive permanently moved to California around 1960, living in Laguna Hills. She died in 1976 at the age of 93.

The descendants of Tom Plant’s siblings dispersed around the country and became citizens of a changing country.85

Summary Members of the Yankee elite created exclusive summer resorts, country clubs and artificial societies in which to spend their leisure time with other white, wealthy, old-family Protestants. This movement was typified by J.P. Morgan’s observation that “you can do business with anyone, but only sail with a gentleman.”86 Although it might appear that Tom Plant’s retirement

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was part of this national trend, there were important differences that distinguish him from it.

Plant didn’t locate to an elite watering-hole like Bar Harbor or Newport, but, instead, moved to a rural area to create a self-contained lifestyle. He was not alone. Lake Winnipesaukee was an area to which other urban business people had retired. Rather than a retreat into an ethnocentric society, Plant demonstrated an international appreciation of life, class-biased though it was. A desire for the companionship of his peers drove him to create an exclusive country club whose original members were ethnically diverse but similar to his own background of being a self-made man. He tried to mold the club to his own tastes. Plant had no doubt thought to provide himself with leisure activity and companionship when he created the Bald Peak Country Club, but, as his finances declined, he tried to combine business with pleasure by having his real estate transactions with the club cover his depreciating land values. When he finally divested himself of the club, it was reminiscent of his compromise with the USMC, where he threw in everything and just “had done” with the situation.

Tom Plant was undoubtedly the wealthiest Franco-American of his era. Although his success in business had been achieved at the sacrifice of much of his heritage, retirement allowed him to cultivate his interests in French culture. Although his search for “roots” could have been part of the era’s craze for genealogy as an expression of racial supremacy, it seemed to be, as with other parts of his life, more of an individualistic celebration of his life.87 Plant did not go to French Canada, but went directly to France and chose the 19th century’s most celebrated revolutionary for his hero.

The timing of his family’s arrival in Maine and his boyhood experiences separated him from the larger Franco-American mill migrations that took place after he left Maine. His focus was on the larger community than on an ethnic sub-community.

Plant’s endowment of a workers retirement home in Bath was similar to his concern for workers’ welfare, except there was no capital benefit to be derived from it. It would seem that he was not only fulfilling a belief in the strong caring for the weak or fulfilling reform capitalism as embodied in the Progressive Party, but that he was also trying to make peace with his past and to show the people among whom he had grown up that he had “made it” and that he cared.

Why did Plant lose his fortune? He had not only weathered four depressions, but had prospered. He had depth in one industry, but failed

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to acquire sufficient breadth to survive in the larger financial world. Plant did not sufficiently diversify his investments. He focused his wealth in depreciating real estate that did not produce a salable commodity. Despite his failures, he remained optimistic about his ability to rebound and considered the trees on his property his ace in the hole, but one which he refused to use. His love of nature came to surpass his business sense and reveals that, at heart, he was a romantic longing for something much more spiritual than the hard-headed business life with which he had been preoccupied.88 Thomas G. Plant had gone from rags to riches, then back to virtual rags.

Only his friends’ benevolence and his death forestalled a final downturn in his lifestyle. One cannot feel too badly about this bad luck. Plant was able to maintain a grand lifestyle, unimagined by most citizens of the United States, even while he was in virtual penury. One researcher sees his success and failure as part of a single issue – the incredible persistence that had allowed him to succeed against great odds also failed to let him cut his losses and salvage some of his wealth. Plant almost qualifies as an Aristotelian tragic hero, where one rises to the pinnacle of success and then falls low because of their own hubris. Although he was reported to have said that one should learn to wish things to be exactly as they are, he certainly fought tooth and nail to change those things.89 His strong will had brought both success and grief. The best tribute came from an old friend reflecting on their playing baseball together: ...And that is how he went through life; bare-handed and without mask or shield. He believed that the true test of courage is what a man dares to do alone. His business success was a testimony to this principle.90

Endnotes 1 Country Life: “Lucknow”: 16-d. Plant, Lucknow: 36. Estaver: 13. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 8. Gray: 3–4, 6. Drake. Coburn. Lucy Larcom, New England Magazine, 1892, in Estaver: 12–13. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, William Robinson to Thomas Plant, 14 July 1917, Book 153: 224; Sarah Brown to Thomas Plant, 2 October 1917, Book 153: 597; Katie & Andrew Day to Thomas Plant, 20 October 1917, Book 153: 598; James French to Thomas Plant, 13 May 1918, Book 154: 580; Abraham Gould to Thomas Plant, 11 June 1919, Book 156: 555; Martha & George French to Thomas Plant, 27 November 1919, Book 157: 570 and 17 November 1920, Book 160: 133; Robert Durgin to Thomas Plant, 6 November

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 1915, Book 149: 414; Rayne Adams to Thomas Plant, 12 November 1916, Book 152: 80; Nannie & Orville Porter to Thomas Plant, 16 April 1917, Book 152: 486; Ernest Buxton to Thomas Plant, 11 May 1917, Book 153: 33.

2 Plant’s agents buried the cemetery gate and it was never recovered. The Boston American report of the graveyard incident was only partially microfilmed. The second page of the story is missing and the hard copy at the Boston Public Library was too fragile to unfold. No other copy of this paper was known to exist. Estaver: 13. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 8. Drake: 1. Gray: 3. Martha Oliver.

3 George Blanchard in Drake. Coburn.

4 Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Labbie.

Coburn.

5 Labbie. Coburn.

6 Unidentified resident in Coburn.

7 Two anonymous summer tourists in Coburn. Wakefield. Lamprey.

8 Traditional 10 by 20 foot (3 x 6 meter) cabins were a common style of home in the Ossipee area. Wakefield. Lamprey. Martha Oliver.

9 Goodwin.

10 Olive Plant occasionally visited family and friends in Toulon, Illinois. Tom Plant’s early deeds in New Hampshire used Boston justices of the peace, indicating at least a strong legal attachment to the New England metropolis. Gray: 10. Olive Plant, in Wellesley College, “The Record,” 1920, Volume 3: 36–37. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-e. Perrin.

11 Olive Plant in Wellesley College, “The Record,” Volume 3, 1920: 37–38.

Massachusetts, Judicial Branch Superior Court, Suffolk County, John Kelly Contracting Company.

12 The greenhouse was designed in early 1914 by the Lord & Burnham Company of Irvington-on-Hudson in New York. Their advertising used appeals to social status to market their products. The greenhouse was researched by historian Cristina Ashjian in 2005, with the plans presented two years later. Ashjian, “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-d. Olive Plant in Wellesley College, “The Record,” Volume 3, 1920: 38. Gray: 11. George: 12.

13 Tom Plant’s private golf course appears to have been converted between a 9-hole and 18-hole course at some time. The story of the Scotch greenskeeper is perhaps related to a story where country club members encountered an elderly Scot who told them how Plant had brought him over from Scotland in 1920 to lay out and supervise the construction of the Bald Peak Country Club’s golf course. Upon inquiry, Olive Plant said that he had been a gardener from a Boston employment

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A Castle in the Clouds: agency, subsequently dismissed. Tom and Olive seem to have been cantankerous with people they did not like, so Olive might have depreciated the situation as much as the Scot might have elevated it. The Keen Kutter was built by Goodhue & Hawkins in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. While a story persists that it was named after one of Plant’s shoe-making inventions, the name is in the same word-play tradition as “Lucknow” and also was perhaps derived from a popular brand of knives by the same name. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16, 16-d. Wilkin: 8, 45, 80.

14 The stable/garage lay 100-feet (30 meters) below the house. Later, a framed collection of ribbons was put on display in the stable and equestrian trophies were set on a mantel in the mansion. It is unknown if these belonged to Plant or if they were random display items put up for commercialism, as had been done by later estate owners with library books. Ashjian, “Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle’”; “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Wilkin: 7–8. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-a, d. Gray: 6, 10–11.

Plant, “Lucknow”: 36. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 2; (Nº 3): 3.

Estaver.

15 The wicker furniture was made by the Dryad Furniture Company of Leicester, England and was only available in the United States in a single exclusive New York store. Plant supposedly owned a suit of armor that he wore for costume balls and was said to be a copy of one belonging to Napoleon. Since suits of armor were not worn in the early 19th century, the Napoleonic connection seems far-fetched.

Although the Castle in the Clouds displays it, one of the early owners said they never saw it when they bought the estate and, if Plant ever owned it, it must have been in storage. They doubted its authenticity, saying Plant had too much taste for something so gauche. Ashjian, “Plant’s Castle Revisited.” Gray: 6, 8, 11. Wilkin: 7. Estaver: 14–15. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 6. Billie Pynn Marden in George: 10. Gonnerman.

16 Olive Plant in Gray: 14. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 8–9.

17 Most secondary sources report that Theodore Roosevelt personally recommended Russian bonds to Tom Plant, but I have not been able to directly connect the two men. John Davis reported that Plant heard Roosevelt recommend the bonds on the radio, but this version is complicated by the fact that the first radio station in the United States was not established until 1920 – after Roosevelt’s death. Interest in the location of Plant’s Russian bonds has persisted. The value of his bonds would today be almost $15 million, In 1991, renovators at the Castle in the Clouds discovered a rusted vault in the cellar that they thought contained any number of valuables, including the “lost” Russian bonds. The Castle managers had the vault opened during a local TV and radio broadcast, only to discover a dead mouse and two century-old wooden coat hangers. The safe was a Mosler vault from circa 1926 with a 6 x 6 x 10 foot (2 x 2 x 3 meter) box, a steel door, and a combination lock. The coat hangers came from F.L. Dunn of 328 Washington

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Street in Boston and were dated 20 May 1890. New Hampshire, Probate Court, Carroll County, Estate of Thomas Plant, 14 August 1941. Davis: 4. Marcus & Segal: 163–164. Marshall Hewitt, “Castle’s safe contains condensation & 1890 hangers,” Granite State News, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, 9 October 1991. Friedman & Schwartz: 192, 205, 216–220. Bradley. Dine, 18 Olive Plant in Wellesley College, “The Record,” Volume 3, 1920: 37–38.

Lovington: 47. Gould. Muñiz. Van Ness. McAvoy-Weissman. Marsteller.

19 Peter Limmer came from Peterskirchen, Bavaria in Germany. Soon after his experiences at the T.G. Plant factory, while standing on a beach in Revere and looking out to sea, someone asked him what he was thinking about so intently.

He replied: “If I could swim, I would start right now to go home.” In a bit of irony, he relocated to New Hampshire, near Lucknow, because it reminded him of his home in Bavaria. At least four generations of the family have been bootmakers.

Peter Limmer & Sons is a celebrated firm and is still in operation in Intervale, New Hampshire. Limmer.

20 Thomas C. and William Jr. entered Dartmouth College in 1907, but their grades steadily declined. Among their studies, they took advanced courses in French. The boys dropped out of Dartmouth in their second year. Everett joined his brothers at the factory around 1911. Drew Allis Company, (1911): 536; (1913): 553. Ashjian, “The Plant Family at Tuftonboro Neck.” Kenneth Plant, Letter, 17 December 2013.

The dogs’ names are noted in the Plant photo albums. Cramer. Dartmouth College.

“Millionaire Plant’s Son.” “Young Plant’s Bride Owner of Famous Foot.”

21 Amy Plant Van Tassel divorced Ted Van Tassel in 1926, changing her name and her children’s’ names back to Plant. In 1947, Ted wrote to the Superior Court in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, reporting that his wife had obtained a divorce decree while he was living in Swampscott, Massachusetts. His records had been destroyed while he was in the army, during the Second World War and so he was writing for a copy of the decree. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Shoe & Leather Reporter, “New Chemical Corporation,” 7 September 1916: 23. New Hampshire, Judicial Branch. Van Tassel.

22 The Hotel Winston lay near the congressional grounds at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue & First Street. It was reported that Thomas and William Plant Sr. were part owners of the hotel. Everett Plant obtained a job at the hotel through the help of Phyllis Maguire’s brother, Francis, who worked there as a clerk. Francis Maguire arranged for his sister’s move to Washington. Everett and Phyllis were married by a Unitarian minister; neither parents nor uncle attended the wedding.

An account reported that William liked Phyllis personally but he did not approve of her as his son’s wife, stating he was “decidedly piqued” by his son’s choice. The family became reconciled, as Everett appears in Manchester, New Hampshire in 1919, in litigation for a car accident. Phyllis died in 1921. “Millionaire Plant’s Son.”

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A Castle in the Clouds: “Young Plant’s Bride Owner of Famous Foot.” Massachusetts, Judicial Branch, Superior Court, Suffolk County, Everett Plant v. Rose Potter. Kenneth Plant, “PlantFamily.Com”.

23 There are few details about Plant Brothers & Company. The fact that Tom and William Plant remained in the new company’s background could have been the result of a non-competing clause in the USMC settlement or their desire to use it as just an investment. William and Margaret Plant’s boys moved out of their parent’s home in Newton and went to Manchester in 1916–1917. Drew Allis Company, (1911): 536; (1913): 553; (1917): 489. New Hampshire, Secretary of State. Maine, Secretary of State. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Manchester (1917): 387; (1918): 371; Boston, (1918): 1245. Manchester Leader. Boot & Shoe Recorder. Elliot Grover.

24 Like Tom Plant, Alfred Grover (1879–1920) was a member of the Algonquin Club in Boston. Manchester Leader. Boot & Shoe Recorder. Elliot Grover. Martha Grover.

25 Plant Brothers & Company began in McGregorville, in the west end of Manchester, in a building that had previously housed the Evans Brothers shoe factory. A newspaper clipping (circa 1950) described it as having 75,000 square feet (7000 square meters) of floor space at the corner of Kelley and Joliette Street.

It described how the Plant Brother factory had been purchased by McGregorville Manufacturing, in which one of the Plant family had some ownership. Other members of the extended family found work in the new firm. Eugene Kingsbury, son of William Sr. and Tom’s sister Frances, appears to have become foreman of their cutting room by 1924. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Manchester (1917): 387; (1918): 371. “Old Plant Brothers’ Shoe Shop Sold,” unattributed newspaper clipping held by Kenneth Plant, Blaine, Minnesota. Kenneth Plant, letter, 22 December 2013. Boot & Shoe Recorder. Elliot Grover. Cynthia O’Neil, City Library, Manchester, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 21 November 1991.

26 There are a series of seven photos of the Plant Brothers & Company factories that have printed captions with their location and square feet listed. These are held

by Kenneth Plant in Blaine, Minnesota.

27 Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Martha Tucker to William Plant, 2 June 1893, Book 83: 437; William Plant to Francis Kingsbury, 28 July 1902, Book 104: 247. Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer”; “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies.” Knight. Bath Daily Times, “Two Bath Boys,” 25 April 1902; Dorothy Dodd shoe advertisement, 30 October 1916.

28 At the time of Tom’s departure for work up the Kennebec River in the 1870s, a Bath woman had endowed an “Old Ladies Home” in her will. Tom’s friend and associate, Fred Emery, served as a director of the Lexington Home for Aged People

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Tom Plant and the American Dream and the Mount Pleasant Home in Boston. After 1920, the elderly facilities in Bath merged into what became the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home. Bennett. Gray: 12. Case: 4. Labbie. New York Times, “F.L. Emery Dead.” Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath: 226–227. T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Minutes: 24 August 1920, 2 January 1920.

29 Tom Plant bought three lots of about 22-acres (9 hectares) from Aramede Tarbox and then transferred them to the Old Folks Home. He subsequently asked for two unused parcels to be transferred back to him. Although the board was composed mostly of established Yankee or Irish men, one Franco-American served as its bookkeeper in 1919 (Augustus Perow) and another joined the board in 1923 (L-Eugene Thebeau). Few French names appeared as either applicants or residents.

This would indicate that while there was still a French-Canadian community in Bath, they tended to look after themselves. There was also a strong Catholic social support system established in Maine by this time. T.G. Plant Memorial Home; Minutes: 14 January 1919, 25 February 1924, 21 November 1933. Bennett. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Aramede Tarbox to Thomas Plant, 1 November 1916, Book 122: 511–513; Thomas Plant to the Old Folks Home, 1 November 1916, Book 135: 410. Plant, Letter to Jim (Lincoln); to Glidden, 6 December 1917.

30 Incorporation of the Old Folks Home was approved by the Maine Legislature on 13 February 1917. The incorporators of the Old Folks Home also became its first trustees – Thomas Plant, Dr. James Lincoln, one of Plant’s close friends who also became the board’s first president, Frank Percy, Walter Glidden, Frank Nichols, J. Edward Drake, and Edward Smith. Old Folks Home; Record of first meeting under charter, Bath, Maine, 30 July 1917: 1-2. Maine, Legislature, Act to Incorporate the Old Folks Home in Bath. Glidden, Letters to Thomas Plant, 3 January 1917, 6 January 1917, 8 January 1917, 13 January 1917, 26 January 1917, 19 February 1917, 3 March 1917; to Thornton; to Ball. Plant, Letters to Glidden, 6 January 1917, 27 February 1917, 3 March 1917. Ball.

31 The Old Folks Home’s innovations were added over the years. In 1918, the home’s 3300 shares of United Shoe Machinery Company stock were worth $40 per share for a total of $132,000. This is erroneously calculated in the home’s records.

The USMC stock paid about $13,000 in dividends and the home cost about $10,000 to operate for 1917–1918, which left a profit of $3000. Other incoming assets increased this endowment. T.G. Plant Home, Treasurer’s Report, 1 November 1918; Record of First meeting under charter: 3, 7; Minutes: 27 January 1917, 16 January 1934, 15 May 1934, 7 June 1940. Plant, Letter to Jim [Lincoln]. Glidden, Letter to Batchelder. Bath Daily Times, “Old Folks’ Home At Hospital Point,” 31 October 1916. Bath Independent, “Old Folks Home Before Thanksgiving Opens,” 25 August 1917. Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath: 338.

Pinkham.

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A Castle in the Clouds: 32 T.G. Plant Home; Record of first trustees meeting (30 July 1917): 3–8; Minutes: 10 November 1917; 10 September 1918: 1–2. Pinkham.

33 The associate members consisted of fifteen women and eight men. In 1923, on Plant’s recommendation, the seven trustees increased to twelve and, the next year, divided from two into ten committees of three members each. These new committees were Finance; Accounts; Provisions & Supplies; Buildings, Grounds & Insurance; Employees; Publicity; Associate Members; Admissions; Discipline; and Visitation. Old Folks Home; Record of first meeting under charter: 1–8; Record of first trustees meeting: 2–3, 5; Minutes: 10 November 1917, 14 August 1923, 6 March 1924, 21 December 1926, 15 March 1927, 16 July 1939. Hasty.

34 Plant said that admission to the Old Folks Home could be somewhat fluid but that it should depend on the applicant and their parents’ contribution to Bath in building up the community, as well as their “level of citizenship” – by example more than financial success. He said acceptance should also be based on the home’s ability to care for additional residents. The board sought Plant’s opinion about admission of people from areas outside of the City of Bath. Although designated for Bath residents, the home relaxed this rule when openings exceeded Bath applicants and finances permitted. People from neighboring towns in Sagadahoc county or old residents who had moved away from Bath were periodically admitted. T.G. Plant Memorial Home; Minutes: 15 July 1919, 17 October 1933, 15 November 1933.

35 T.G. Plant Memorial Home, plaque at entranceway.

36 T.G. Plant Home; Minutes: 20 December 1927, 17 December 1929, 21 November 1933, 20 September 1937, 18 November 1941. Plant, Letter to Percy; Billy [Manson].

37 Although Wilbur Oliver claimed that Tom Plant endowed the Old Folks Home with $400,000, I believe that he erroneously referred to the state charter’s maximum holdings rather than to the Trustees’ records, which indicate less than a $150,000 endowment. Old Folks Home; Record of first meeting under charter and by-laws, 6–7; Minutes: 20 September 1927, 17 December 1929, 17 September 1935, 22 May 1936, 19 May 1937, 19 November 1940. Maine, Legislature, Act to Incorporate the Old Folks Home in Bath. Wilbur Oliver.

38 The minutes of trustee meetings are somewhat scattered in their recording of events. Topics discussed in earlier meetings, but not reported in the minutes, are occasionally cited in later minutes when the trustees actually took action. T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: 12 June 1923, 16 July 1923, 14 August 1923.

39 The use of public pronouncements like Oliver’s poster was common to the times. Wilbur Oliver. Thomas Plant, Letter to Glidden, 22 June 1918.

40 T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: List of inmates, 31 December 1927.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream 41 Many of Plant’s endowments were known to but a few people. His entry into Bath civic life also caused him to become more visible with family and friends.

After beginning the Old Folks Home, Plant exchanged land with his boyhood friend, Scott Frye, who had helped in the construction of his mansion, and Judge Glidden facilitated the resolution of a sewage problem between his sister, Frances Kingsbury, and the City of Bath. It is odd that the trustees of the Old Folks Home did not acknowledge Tom’s death or order a tribute sent to the newspapers, as had been customary for other trustees. Tom died during a two-month recess of the board. Perhaps something special was done, which was not recorded, or perhaps there were hard feelings by some trustees about his loan requests. Maine, Sagadahoc County, Deed Registry, Scott Frye to Thomas Plant, 15 June 1917, Book 135: 443; Thomas Plant to Scott Frye, 18 August 1917, Book 137: 246–247. Plant, Letter to Glidden, 22 June 1918. Glidden, Letter to Plant, 28 June 1918. T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: 26 June 1941, 18 September 1941. Case: 4.

42 Country clubs had become fashionable in the United States by this time, peaking with 4500 clubs nationwide in 1929. Baltzell: 355. Wilkin: 10, 20. Edith Jones in Wilkin: 130. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 9. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 13.

43 As in other projects, Plant engaged multiple architectural firms and micromanaged construction, at times withholding payment until things were done to his liking. In 2011, Cristina Ashjian presented her research on the club.

Ashjian, “’Not Alone in the Wilderness.’” The Bald Peak Colony Club later formed a company of convenience – the Bald Peak Land Company. Due to errors at the Carroll County Deed Registry, I was unable to obtain copies of all records for the Bald Peak Realty Company and the Bald Peak Country/Colony Club. The following deed citations could carry to adjoining pages. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Bald Peak Realty Company and Bald Peak Country/Colony Club, Book 160: 201; Book 161: 330, 541; Book 164: 388; Book 165: 402; Book 169: 451, 541, 565; Book 170: 242; Book 171: 473; Book 172: 57, 61–64, 567; Book 173: 515, 561; Book 174: 49, 401–402, 405, 419; Book 175: 278, 385–386, 388, 391, 458, 518, 524; Book 176: 215; Book 177: 50–51, 61; Book 179: 172, 175–176; Book 182: 315; Book 183: 449; Book 184: 109, 392; Book 185: 355–356, 361–362, 379–380, 383, 459, 465, 489, 498; Book 186: 97, 105, 153, 530, 541; Book 187: 391; Book 188: 278, 490; Book 191: 237; Book 192: 301; Book 193: 390, 557; Book 194: 261; Book 199: 391; Book 210: 221, 223, 225, 441, 450; Book 211: 253; Book 212: 385–386, 395–396; Book 213: 171; Book 214: 524, 593; Book 224: 258, 329, 331, 341; Book 225: 498; Book 232: 176; Bald Peak Land Company, Book 242: 189; Book 244: 15, 441; Book 245: 229. Wilkin: 10. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 11–12. Gil Morris in Wilkin: 10–11. Gray: 11. Gribbel.

44 The cost of the Bald Peak Country Club was just over $900,000. The initial leadership consisted of James Remick as president, Tom Plant as treasurer, and

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A Castle in the Clouds: Alexander Murchie as secretary, with Donald Knowlton and William Haggett as board members. By the time of its incorporation in 1920, its name had changed from the Oak Hill Development to the Bald Peak Country Club. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to the Bald Peak Country Club, 4 December 1920, Book 160: 201. Bald Peak Country Club, Minutes: 11 November 1922, 36–37, in Wilkin: 25; 7 December 1920, 16, in Wilkin: 20. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 11. Wilkin: 12. Gray: 11. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 13. Childs.

45 Plant’s good friend, Fred Emery, had a summer home on Pig Island, which lay on the other side of Lake Winnipesaukee, near the village of Glendale. Wilkin: 12.

Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 22 August 1925, 86, in Wilkin: 31; 27 August 1926, 97, in Wilkin: 35. Olive Plant in Wilkin: 12, 20. Julie Case in Wilkin: 116.

New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, the Bald Peak Country Club to Thomas Plant, 31 December 1925, Book 173: 515–516. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 1–32. Ashjian, “‘Not Alone in the Wilderness.’”

46 Wilkin: 12–13.

47 Plant stated in the club’s by-laws: “The club’s objectives are to promote social intercourse among its members, and to provide them with the facilities for recreation.” Thomas Plant in Wilkin: 130, 136. Wilkin: 8. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 28.

48 Wilkin: 12–13.

49 Anne Clark, a club member, remembered: “For our first few summers at Bald Peak we rented a cottage from Mr. Plant usually for the month of August. Each year it became increasingly difficult to do so chiefly because Mr. Plant did not want young children, and we had two!” Anne Clark in Wilkin: 74. Mrs. Lincoln Page in Wilkin: 22. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 3 April 1928, 124, in Wilkin: 38–39.

Wilkin: 13. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 20, 22, 24.

50 John Taylor (1871–1973) was an English golf champion and golf course architect, who was co-founder of the British Professional Golfer’s Association. Sandy Herd (1868–1944) was a Scottish golf champion, who considered the Bald Peak Country Club the most beautiful golf course in the United States. Jesse Guilford (1895– 1962) was from New Hampshire and won the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1921. Francis Ouimet (1893–1967) was a famous Franco-American amateur golfer who removed the British upper-class “stigma” from the game and popularized it in the United States. Ouimet continued his contact with Bald Peak, serving on their invitational tournament committee in 1937. All four golfers were working-class champions, which indicates Plant’s continuing appreciation of self-made success stories. In 1923, Elbert Brock replaced James Remick as president of the Bald Peak Country Club and Olive Plant replaced Alexander Murchie as secretary. The country club board consisted of Tom and Olive Plant, Fred Emery, Elbert Brock

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Tom Plant and the American Dream and William Plant. Brock was a vice-president of the John Hancock Life Insurance Company of Boston. The office of president was a “sinecure” – “Mr. Plant wanted a president in name only.” For the next eighteen months, only the three Plants attended board meetings. Plant ran the club for its first years, assisted by Alfred Handley, his secretary, Johnny Mulrenan, and groundsman Tom Sawyer. Wilkin: 12, 34, 100. Thomas Dreier in Wilkin: 22–23. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 15 October 1921, 23; 5 August 1922, 23; 11 November 1922, 36–45; 14 May 1923, 49; 8 September 1923, 54; 10 June 1924, 55; 13 September 1924, 56; 4 November 1924, 58, in Wilkin: 22–28. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Bald Peak Country Club to Thomas Plant, 11 November 1922, Book 164: 387; Thomas Plant to the Bald Peak Realty Company, 11 November 1922, Book 164: 388. Bald Peak Country Club, Bald Peak Summer Colony: 12; Program of the Third Annual Invitation Tournament, 23–25 July 1937: 1–4.

51 In 1924, the club’s board of directors valued a membership at $4700. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 4 December 1924, 58–62; 27 January 1925, 67–69; in Wilkin: 28, 30. Childs, Letter, 1924.

52 Frank Lahey (1880–1953) joined the Bald Peak Country Club in 1929. Wilkin: 12, 31, 81–82, 87–90. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 22 August 1925, 79, 86; 27 August 1926, 92, 97; 3 April 1928, 124, in Wilkin: 30–31, 33, 35, 38. Mrs. Houghton Parker in Wilkin: 34. Childs, Letter, 1924; 29 October 1925.

53 New York Times, “F.L. Emery Dead.” Wilkin: Preface.

54 In the 1920s, Plant sold a right-of-way to the Utilities Power Company to erect a power and telephone cable across his land, and so Lucknow was tied into the power company’s system. Plant granted another right-of-way in 1940 to the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, Inc. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Utilities Power Company, 9 January 1923, Book 165: 401; Right-of-Way Easement, Thomas Plant to the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, 25 July 1941, Book 223: 543. Gray: 10. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 6; (Nº 3): 4. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16, 16-d. Cunningham: 79.

55 Albert Beliveau, a Franco-American officer from Maine stationed in France during World War I, even noted the problem caused by cancellation of payments on Russian bonds. Beliveau, Diaries: 23 April 1918. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Probate Court, Estate of Thomas Plant. Lovington: 47. Gould. Muñiz. Van Ness. McAvoy-Weissman.

56 Alfred Grover died from typhoid fever, exacerbated by overwork in keeping the firm’s seven factories filling their government contracts. In 1924, William and Margaret Plant mortgaged their summer home on Tuftonboro Neck and then sold it the next year, perhaps to secure capital with which to run Plant Brothers & Company or to settle the firm’s debt with the IRS. They had asked $40,000 for

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A Castle in the Clouds: the property and Tom Plant acted as their broker. After her divorce, Amy Plant (born 1886) and her children lived with her parents and moved with them to California. William Plant Jr. (1889–1953) also moved to California, where he worked as a watchman for a lumber company. Everett Plant (1893–1968) became rancher in California, started a construction business in Miami, Florida, and finally settled in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he worked as an engineer.

Thomas C. Plant (1890–1970) worked for the U.S. Veteran’s Administration in New Hampshire. Sampson, Murdock & Company, Newton Directory (1921): 545; Manchester Directory (1917): 387; (1918): 371; (1919): 374; (1920): 367;

(1921): 388; (1922): 390; (1923): 385; (1924): 418; (1925): 427; (1926): 578; (1927): 523. New Hampshire, Hillsborough County, Deed Registry, U.S. v. Plant Brothers & Company, Notice of Tax lien, 30 July 1924, Book 832: 197–198; Carroll County, Deed Registry, Margaret Plant to the Rochester Trust Company, 6 September 1924, Book 16: 16; Margaret Plant to Isabel Barber, 19 September 1925, Book 236: 172; William Plant to Byron Dolley, 23 October 1929, Book 186: 16. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 16-h. Kenneth Plant, PlantFamily.Com; letter, 22 December 2013. Elliot Grover.

57 George Wesley Perry of Penacook, New Hampshire worked as Plant’s photographer. Plant, Lucknow. Country Life, “Lucknow”: 7-16h. Perry.

George: 6. Cunningham: 79. Perry was hosted at the Castle in the Clouds by estate manager Wayne Wakefield in 1965. Perry’s letter identifying himself as Plant’s photographer was preserved by Wakefield.

58 It appears that Plant’s resignation from the club’s board was under duress, since he withdrew his financial support. The transactions revealed that he had sold 688 acres (278 hectares) to the club over the preceding decade. Other loans and financial schemes were put forward over the years to keep the club afloat and, although it would remain in chronic difficulty for decades to come, it has survived to the present. In 1932, the name of the club was changed to the Bald Peak Colony Club. Wilkin: 48. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 8 April 1927, 108; 17 November 1927, 114; 14 December 1927, 115–118; 1 November 1929, 180; 16 January 1932, Book II, 43; in Wilkin, 36, 37, 45, 51, 80–81. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Bald Peak Realty Company to Thomas Plant, 19 December 1928, Book 182: 443–445. New York Times, “For Sale.”

59 Mary Case in Wilkin: 72–73.

60 Case: 1.

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61 Willis Wakefield was the father of Dick Wakefield who told the deer hunting story. Coburn. Richard Wakefield. Martha Oliver in Malaspina: 40.

62 Estaver: 15. Bald Peak Country Club Minutes, 24 August 1935, Book III, 36, in Wilkin: 57. Gribbel. Scott, Interview.

63 Estaver: 15. Case: 1, 5. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 3.

U.S. Commerce Department, Commissioner of Patents, 1933: 684.

64 Wilkin: 9.

65 Dick Wakefield found a voter registration roll in his attic for September 1941. Although Tom and Olive’s names are on it, their party was not indicated. Tom had died and Olive moved away that summer. Richard Wakefield. Lamprey.

66 Fred Davis began work at Lucknow in 1938. George: 11–12. Wakefield.

67 In 1938, a prospective buyer was Lincoln Ellsworth, a polar explorer who was also a great admirer of Napoleon. Estaver: 15. Wilkin: 11–12.

Gray: 13. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Irma Scholz, 6 February 1924, Book 167: 285–286; 6 February 1924, Book 167: 361–362; Irma Scholz Discharge Mortgage, 18 February 1924, Book 167: 356; Thomas Plant to Irma Scholz, no date, Book 167: 356; no date, Book 170: 148; Beacon Trust Company to Thomas Plant, 1 November 1927, Book 179: 171; Thomas Plant to Bald Peak Realty Company, 31 October 1927, Book 179: 173–174; Bald Peak Realty Company to Thomas Plant, 17 December 1928, Book 182: 378; 5 September 1929, Book 184: 459; 11 September 1929, Book 184: 516; no date, Book 184: 576.

68 Joseph Emery (1860–1941) of Dover, New Hampshire, had a life parallel to that of Tom Plant. He had risen from traveling salesman for Lord & Taylor department store in New York City to its president in 1909. In 1913, he began consolidating hosiery firms into what became Onyx Hosiery of New York City and served as a bank director. He retired in 1925 and passed his time in travel, playing golf, and involvement in a genealogical society.

William Robinson’s loans were less than $1000 each. New York Times, “J.H. Emery, 81, Dies.” Plant, Letter to Glidden: 13 September 1935; 21 September 1935. Wilkin: 27. Bald Peak Country Club, brochure, 1925–1926, in Wilkin: 29. Bill Wallbridge in Wilkin: 142–143. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Probate Court, Estate of Thomas Plant; Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Robert Clayton, 19 December 1928, Book 182: 447–451; Robert Clayton to Joseph Emery, 19 October 1929, Book 185: 237; Thomas Plant to Joseph

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Emery, 11 November 1930, Book 188: 427–431; 27 December 1937, Book 210: 198; Thomas Plant to William Britton, 22 July 1933, Book 196: 25–31; Thomas Plant to William Robinson, 24 March 1931, Book 197: 500; 13 November 1945, Book 239: 337. William Robinson to Thomas Plant, 10 August 1932, Book 193: 589–590.

69 In 1936, the Old Folks Home had at least $35,000 of investment capital, and $37,000 the next year. Their $36,000 loan to Tom Plant was to be at 4% interest, from a 3½% loan from the Bath Trust Company. It amounted to a loan on his endowment for a nominal ½% interest. Glidden, Letter to Batchelder. T.G. Plant Home; Minutes: 11 September 1935, 17 September 1935, 19 May 1937.

70 Glidden, Letter to Thomas Plant: 12 September 1935, 17 September 1935, 23 September 1935. Plant, Letter to Glidden: 13 September 1935, 16 September 1935, 21 September 1935. T.G. Plant Home; Minutes: 11 September 1935.

71 Glidden, Letter to Batchelder. Fogg. T.G. Plant Home; Minutes: 11 September 1935.

72 Glidden, Letter to Batchelder. Batchelder. Fogg.

73 Plant kept a cordial relationship with the Old Folks Home trustees and was to host them at his estate in mid-October 1935 to view the autumn foliage: “I will guarantee that they will see the most beautiful scenery they have ever viewed in this country or elsewhere.” Batchelder. Glidden, Letter to Plant, 4 October 1935. Plant, Letter to Glidden, 16 September 1935. T.G Plant Home; Minutes: 15 October 1935.

74 Despite his financial setbacks, Tom Plant remained optimistic. He thought he could pay back his debts and gave the Old Folks Home terms for the future gifts – they could only be invested in federal, state or municipal obligations, provided the cities had over a 100,000 population, were located north of Kentucky and North Carolina, and east of the Missouri River. It seems that he had learned a lesson about speculation and security. The Old Folks Home had diversified its holdings and succeeded. It was a lesson learned too late by Tom Plant. Emery released some of the mortgaged property for Plant to sell so that he could pay his taxes. This was in Emery’s best interest, since taxes would have taken precedence in foreclosure, and Plant was liable for taxes, not the mortgage holder. The Bald Peak Colony Club bought the three cottages on which Emery had tried to foreclose.

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T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: 15 November 1933. Bald Peak Country Club, Minutes, 13 December 1937, Book III, 138, in Wilkin: 61. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Joseph Emery, 27 December 1937, Book 210: 198; to Frank Gould, tax collector, 18 October 1933, Book 196: 319–320; to Caroline Plant, 11 January 1937, Book 206: 341; to The Old Folks Home, 15 August 1939, Book 217: 10; Joseph Emery statement of discharge, 4 January 1938, Book 210: 198; Collector’s Sale of Real Estate, Year of Levy, 1937, 29 September 1938, Book 212: 501–502; Year of Levy, 1938, 28 August 1939, Book 216: 15-16; Caroline Plant to Thomas Plant, 20 September 1938, Book 215: 518; Property sold for taxes, redeemed, 30 September 1940, Book 220: 306.

75 Around 1932, Tom visited Lawrence Roderick Sr. in Augusta, Maine.

Lawrence had been born in the same year as Tom (1859) and they shared common grandparents, Joseph Rodrigue and Victoire Thivierge of St. Georges in the Beauce. Richard Roderick, Lawrence’s eight-year old grandson, especially remembered Tom’s big car – a contrast of tough times and a sense of importance given to Plant. Hazel Adams in Lamb. Bath Daily Times, “Mrs. Francis D. Kingsbury,” 22 January 1924; “William F. Plant,” 20 April 1934; “Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies in Laconia,” 26 July 1941. Bath Independent, “Granite Shaft Marks Last Resting Place of Bath Benefactor,” 11 June 1942. Boston Evening Transcript, “Wm. F. Plant, Former Officer of Plant Corp.,” 19 April 1934. New York Times, “F.L. Emery Dead.” Richard Roderick. Labbie.

76 Dewey.

77 Stories circulated that Plant asked for admittance to the Old Folks Home, but did not qualify. I have not seen any written record to this effect.

Residency was offered to Olive Plant, in 1948, after she had apparently had asked for a loan. T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: 15 August 1939, 19 October 1939, 14 December 1939, 21 December 1939. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to the Old Folks Home, 15 August 1939, Book 217: 10. Gray: 13. Pinkham. Small.

78 Plant was said to import wild flowers and trees from around the world, such Russian pine, and scattered them throughout his forest. Estaver: 15.

Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 3.

79 Such declarations were customary, such as the statement of “My Daily Desire,” which was set on a bronze plaque on the drawing-room chimney

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of Tom Dreier’s cottage at the Bald Peak Country Club. Case: 6. Tom Dreier in Wilkin: 101–102.

80 Tom Plant’s formal religious activity at this time is unknown. Wayne Wakefield thought that Olive Plant, and maybe Tom, had – at some point – a connection with the Christian Science Church. This connection could have come from his thought that Plant “didn’t believe” in hospitals or doctors. The Wolfeboro Christian Science Church had no documentation of the Plants’ membership, so the association seems spurious. Case: 5.

Wayne Wakefield. Davis: 9.

81 New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Joseph Emery, Foreclosure, Deed & Affidavit, 18 August 1941, Book 224: 304. Gray: 13. Martha Oliver. Nancy Erickson in Wilkin: 85. H.C. “Sam” Colby in Davis: 10.

82 Joseph Emery died on 2 March 1941. Despite claims that Plant was buried in Bath, Wayne Wakefield’s grandmother reported that his ashes were strewn over Ossipee Mountain. New York Times, “J.H. Emery, 81, Dies.” New Hampshire, Carroll County, Deed Registry, Thomas Plant to Joseph Emery, Foreclosure, Deed & Affidavit, 18 August 1941, Book 224: 301–307; Division of Vital Records Administration. Labbie. Gray: 13.

Leslie. Estaver: 15. Wayne Wakefield. Davis: 4.

83 Bath Daily Times, “Memorial Service For Thomas G. Plant,” 28 July 1941. Case.

84 Plant’s debts included medical and funeral expenses, hotel and service costs, private debts, and promissory notes to publishers for real estate promotion. His estate received $7550.83 – mostly derived from the sale of his defaulted Russian bonds. Olive Plant received $2957.96 for administration costs. The remaining $4592.87 was prorated. For example, the $72,758.57 owed to William Britton was reduced to $3130.80 and the $15.45 owed to the New England Telephone & Telegraph Company was reduced to 66¢. The few shares of stock Plant owned were also sold. Arthur Nighswander was a young man in the law firm that adjudicated Plant’s estate; he reported that the files were destroyed after the estate was settled.

It was said that Tom’s first wife, Caroline, returned after his death and paid his medical bills. Since these expenses appear outstanding in the probate records, this seems to be romantic fantasy. If she did pay these debts, it was after the estate was settled. Lucknow went from the Emery estate

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to the Draper Corporation and then, about 1942, to Tom Plant’s friend Fred Tobey, who bought it as a lumber investment and a summer home.

He converted the former golf course into a pasture for 100 head of black Angus cattle. In 1956, Richard Robie Sr., who made his fortune in Avis and Hertz car rental agencies, bought the estate for $125,000. He renamed it, “Castle in the Clouds,” and marketed it as a tourist attraction. In 1991, the AWH Corporation bought the estate and continued to run it as a tourist attraction. In 2002, the Lakes Region Conservation Trust, a nonprofit regional land trust, bought the property and spun off the historic estate to the Castle Preservation Society. New Hampshire, Carroll County, Probate Court, Estate of T.G. Plant; Deed Registry, Taxes on the following “Advertised Tax Sale Properties” paid, 28 August 1941, Book 224: 359; Redeemed property sold for taxes, 28 August 1941, Book 224: 359–360; Olive Plant to Jackson Emery & Robert Porter, 4 February 1942, Book 226: 273–274; to Olin Philbrook, 16 September 1942, Book 228: 240, 260. Castle in the Clouds, Castle in the Clouds, Lucknow Estate. Wilkin: 105. Castle in the Clouds, Tour guide notes (Nº 1): 2. Estaver: 15. Gray: 15. Davis: 4, 10. Scott, Interview. O’Gorman: 326, 528. Bradley. Dine. Small. Gribbel.

Nighswander. Robie.

85 Lena Goodwin sent Moultonborough news in a Christmas letter to Olive Plant each year. After 1954, when Lena Goodwin passed away, Olive visited her daughter to say that it would probably be her last visit to New Hampshire and to express her appreciation for Mrs. Goodwin’s letters. A letter from Nanlee Palmer (1898–1981) indicates that she knew both Tom and Olive Plant before she was hired as Olive’s nurse-companion in 1965.

Goodwin. Olive Dewey in Wellesley College, “The Record,” 1955, Volume 9: 23. California, Department of Health Services. Santa Ana Public Library.

T.G. Plant Home, Minutes: 19 March 1942. Nanlee Palmer.

86 Plant was part of the gentleman farmer movement, as were his friends and colleagues like Sherman Whipple and William Gaston. Baltzell: 109– 127. J.P. Morgan in Baltzell: 119. Boston Evening Transcript, “Sherman L. Whipple Dies.” James T. White & Company, Volume 26: 82–83.

87 Baltzell: 114–116.

88 I believe Plant’s romanticism reveals that he was disappointed at having no children. This comes through in his writing about Lucknow, with his indulgence of his nieces and nephews, as well as in his reaction towards children at the club. There was a self-righteous element in his success. He

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set-up stringent moral guidelines not only in his personal life, but also in the administration of the Old Folks Home and the Bald Peak Country Club. “Never did one speak of him as a alright fellow. He was talked of either as a tyrant or else as the grandest person that ever lived.” Sharon Theberge’s analysis of Tom Plant is an insightful study. Davis: 3. Theberge.

89 Theberge. Case: 5.

90 Case: 2.

Ted Van Tassel and Tom Plant, Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, circa 1920. Courtesy of Kenneth Plant.

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Chapter VIII – Conclusion Tom Plant’s success was in stark contrast to experiences of French-Canadian mill migrants after 1870. These later arrivals had much more difficulty with material improvement and often consolidated into petits canadas and adopted an ethos of survivance. Plant’s rise, in large part, was a matter of timing. His ancestors had been acquainted with the frontier Yankee world for over a century before their migration to Maine. They came to Maine before the U.S. Civil War and formed part of a small colony of French Canadians who met with comparatively little hostility and rapidly acculturated to New England society. They learned English, became Protestant, anglicized their names, and adopted many Yankee values. The children of these early FrenchCanadian colonists became largely assimilated by the century’s end and we, therefore, have to ask ourselves if Tom Plant can truly be considered a “Franco-American.”1 Indeed, this was a key question asked by Paul Paré, a Franco-American organizer, scholar and author, when he read an early draft of this book. I had not thought of this issue before, so it led to a refocusing of my thesis.

Is ethnicity defined by blood, up-bringing, culture, or language? Is it selfproclaimed or conferred by peers? Tom Plant qualifies on all these points.

He was brought up in a French-Canadian family in an ethnic neighborhood, apparently spoke French, enjoyed French culture, maintained contact with his family and childhood friends, and was identified as being of FrenchCanadian origin.2 Nonetheless, economic opportunity eroded this identity.

Tom Plant came of working age just as large-scale mechanization of the shoe industry and a major influx of French-Canadian mill workers began. His craft was threatened by machinery, while French migrants met with hostility from Yankee management, officials, and workers. He saw that there was little future in being a skilled worker or a French Canadian. Indeed, he began his first shoe factory at the time when French-Canadian workers were being labeled the “Chinese of the East.” His thorough knowledge of the Yankee world allowed him to leave his proletarian and French-Canadian background behind. While Franco-Americans of the mill migration era also advanced in the business world, the difference was one of degree and direction. Their clientele came from the petits canadas, while Plant’s customers came from the wider world of a multicultural United States. His ambition precluded dependence upon any ethnic minority. The Franco-American market, in its entirety of almost a million people, could not have provided him with a sufficient consumer base from which to succeed to the degree that he did.

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On the cutting-edge of modernity, Plant moved from the life of a worker to that of a petit bourgeois producer by a variety of strategies that ratcheted him to higher levels of achievement and acceptance. Each step distanced him from his heritage. His basic skill was that of an entrepreneur, consolidating opportunities to his personal advantage. A good marriage helped cement him to the Yankee, Protestant moyenne bourgeoisie. Once at the top of the shoe industry, Plant saw the opportunity allowed by shoe machinery production and the need to fight the USMC monopoly. But, unlike other industrialists, he developed an aggressive and sophisticated strategy to coerce the USMC into a settlement that allowed him to escape to the leisure of a haut bourgeois.3 He had done well for a boy with only an 8th grade education.

His leisure time allowed him to recover some of his lost heritage.

Plant studied French culture, traveled in France, patronized French art, identified with Napoleon, and developed an internationalist outlook. As his fortune dwindled, he reconnected with his French-Canadian family in Maine and took solace in his forest seclusion. Indeed, his final retreat to a New Hampshire mountaintop could appear to be an individualistic form of survivance.

However, it is obvious that Plant was not considered “Franco-American” by the Franco-American establishment. His name does not appear in Le Guide Officiel or other prestigious Franco-American directories.4 Likewise, it does not appear in Anglo-American “Who’s Who” directories, while his Anglo subordinates and less successful colleagues did. These factors make an assessment of his position in both of these societies difficult, but point to a central problem of his life – social alienation. Tom was not driven by some mystical sense of ambition, but by unmet needs from an insecure childhood.

He grew up in a milieu of privation and hardship. His family had a share of social problems, such as drinking. His father had been incapacitated by wounds received in the Civil War, and so the entire family needed to work. Such problems were not unusual for that era, but the insecurity of his youth compelled Plant to seek control of all aspects of his adult life. It took an incredible amount of success and money before he felt comfortable enough to retire. Fear of failure was an engine that drove his acculturation and success. His need to control situations moved him from cooperative ventures into sole ownership and then into investment. However, this need to control finally defeated him. Financiers lacking knowledge generally

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hired advisors. Plant’s need to control led him to not only shun advisors but to disregard the advice of others. His ignorance was compounded by stubbornness and led to financial disaster.

A strong moral element was linked to Plant’s need to control. Although having a deep sense of right and wrong, his code of ethics was not faithbased. His religious associations were a matter of convenience and perhaps reflected the religious split in his childhood. Plant set up stringent moral guidelines in the administration of the Old Folks Home and the Bald Peak Country Club. Although such moralism seems hypocritical coming from one caught in marital infidelity, the contradiction shows that his search for love and acceptance overrode an artificial code of morality. Plant was close to few people. His friends were business associates, and even his brother became his business partner. Such blurring of boundaries between public and private life shows this ambiguity. He needed a “reason” for sharing his emotions.5 Despite his success, he did not “fit-in,” remaining on the fringes of the Boston elite. He seems to have been a consummate outsider and marginal man. He had the ability to be friendly and personable in the aftermath of conflict. He had a forgiving nature, did not hold grudges, and wanted to be liked. He wanted acceptance. Again, Plant compensated for his sense of social inadequacy by wealth and control. He refused workers the ability to dictate to him through a union, but granted them as much as their union wanted and endowed worker loyalty, which he praised as the source of employer wealth. He created his own equestrian society and country club. His material success was evidence of his emotional failure. I also attribute his social and emotional problems to having been caught between two worlds in his youth – French Canadian and Yankee. His attempt to disengage from the former led to his success in the latter, but cost him dearly in his personal life.

Tom Plant became part of the mythology of American life. He became a magnet for grandiose public legends and small personal anecdotes. I was surprised by the number of Tom Plant stories still current among people in Boston, Bath, and along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.6 Plant did not promote himself as a brilliant innovator; his reputation came from the society around him, generated by those who used him for their own wishfulfillment. His legend fixed itself in peoples’ minds because it gave them hope that they too could succeed. Everyone expects to be a winner, despite the odds; the more the winners are celebrated, the easier seem the odds.

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He was a hero of the Progressive Era and his legend was enlarged by the popular press because he epitomized the “American dream” that everyone could “make it.”

I believe that his legend has persisted because of the New Hampshire tourist industry, as well as by the need of Bath and Jamaica Plain to find local heroes. In Lynn, he is merely one of many shoe manufacturers.

Without this need, I think that Plant would have vanished into anonymity like so many other industrialists. Because he was an ideal of the mainstream economy, it was safe for the powers that be to make large of him. He was a generic hero, lacking an ethnic identity. His French-Canadian heritage is never mentioned. Indeed, people are surprised to learn of it. He has been “ethnically cleansed” for mass consumption by Anglo-American society.

The unspoken message is that, to be a success, one has to assimilate.7 He was made into something he wasn’t, a “fearless” catcher without a mitt in an era when catchers didn’t wear mitts. Later generations seized on the image and lost the reality. Far from diminishing his reputation, Plant’s failure gave him a human quality with which people could sympathize.

By understanding Tom Plant and the early French-Canadian migrations to the United States, we can see that many possible pathways were open to the arrivals. The stereotypical experiences of the petit canada and survivance were not written in granite. Indeed, such stereotypes are self-fulfilling – those who go beyond them have been cast into the “outer darkness” and forgotten as Franco-Americans. Tom Plant is an example of one who broke the mold, both as an individual and as a representative of his generation.

It is my suspicion that a review of other Franco-Americans’ careers would shatter that mold for good.

The story of Tom Plant has taken on a new life in modern America.

In the 21st century, the United States has become a nation that has been highly globalized. A rich diversity of ethnic societies cut across our national identity and civic life. We are engaged in commercial enterprise around the globe to a degree never imagined a century ago. There are new international interdependencies and conflicts. This has generated tension and connections, as well as widely fluctuating economic and social cycles.

In this dynamic milieu, some people have rediscovered Tom Plant and posed him as a model for a “new American” – a prescription for what is needed today. He has recently become the subject of a novel, industrial and country life studies, and management conferences.8 I hope that this book provides some insight for such hopes. As can be seen, lessons can

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be learned from Tom’s mistakes as well as from his successes. He himself would have been gratified by such attention, but I believe he would have been the first to offer amendments to it.

Endnotes 1 American sociologist Milton Gordon has elaborated seven categories of assimilation: cultural, structural, marital, identificational, attitude receptional, behavior receptional, and civic. It is difficult to assess Plant’s degree of assimilation.

Superficially, it appears that he was completely assimilated. However, circumstantial evidence highlights unresolved conflicts that marginalized that assimilation.

Whether this was due to cultural, religious, class, or individual tensions cannot be determined at this time. Gordon: 70–71, 76.

2 Tom Plant was noted as being of French-Canadian heritage by contemporaries, and this was done without prejudice, such as in the writings of Gaynor O’Gorman and Elliot Grover. It seems that this identity only later became ambiguous among those who did not know him. This heritage loss was not only done by outsiders, but also within his family. Descendants of the Plante and Rodrigue family tended to more strongly identify with the British ethnicities (Scottish, English, Irish) of the families into which they married, which would appear to be the product of the assimilative process in New England.

3 Two French North American industrialists, Francis Clergue and Joseph Flavelle, appear to be of equal standing to Thomas Plant. However, both were of Huguenot descent, which might indicate the importance of religious/business affiliation and Anglo/Canadian assimilation. Clergue, like Plant, came from Maine. Bliss.

McDowall. Harris, “The Simplification of Europe Overseas.” Jordan.

4 I have not reviewed a full press run of the Guide Officiel, but have not found Tom Plant listed in key years of his life. Albert Bélanger. Dion-Levesque.

5 Psychotherapist Sharon Theberge sees Plant’s drive for material success as an escape from a dysfunctional family, a problem that would lead to his downfall by not allowing him to resolve the more intimate issues of his life and forcing his retreat into an intractable world of materialism. She sees Plant’s interaction with his brother’s children, his wives and mistresses as further examples of this failure to express and accept love. Theberge has an astrological chart cast for Plant by Brian Sandy; she sees how the chart also corresponds to the patterns of Plant’s life and elaborates it. Theberge, letter & interview. Sandy. In this theoretical vein, one can see how Plant’s repeated return to California could also reflect the contradictions and discontent in his life. He had French-Canadian relatives who had joined the 1849 Gold Rush in California. Some remained. He went there in his youth and returned throughout his life. His brother retired there. California tempered the strait-laced Yankee world with an easy-going Spanish culture. It was a world of

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A Castle in the Clouds: contradictions – a rough-and-tumble frontier life combined with a transcendental nature movement, where poets and intellectuals vied with vigilantes. California had something for everyone and acted as a magnet for North Americans. Starr: 415–444.

6 The process by which a Tom Plant mythology has developed is a variation on several “laws” that describe how individuals receive disproportional credit for innovation. These include Stigler’s law of eponymy, the Matthew effect, and Boyer’s law. The interest in Tom Plant has not always been well received, as with Martha Oliver, whose family had been engaged in a land dispute with Plant in Moultonborough. When I asked her for information, her reaction was: “Tom Plant, I’m sick of talking about Tom Plant.” This was an appropriate response considering her family’s venerable history and treatment at the hands of Plant’s people. Martha Oliver. In the present era of electronic communication, some have tried to profit from this interest. About 2010, an opportunist acquired photo albums of one of William Plant’s sons, cut out pictures, and auctioned them off as souvenirs on eBay as belonging to Thomas G. Plant. Kenneth Plant, Blaine, Minnesota, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 17 December 2013.

7 Scholars who denigrate Quebeckers’ extension of their patrimoine to places like factories fail to take into account of it being a reaction to deculturalization, as had happened to Tom Plant. Handler: 153.

8 Richard Shakalis in Massachusetts is developing a novel about Tom Plant. David Leuser in New Hampshire is producing a study about Ossipee Mountain Park that includes an assessment of Tom Plant. Accountant John Woollacott found himself at a national conference for CPAs in San Francisco in 2013 where the featured speaker presented Tom Plant as a model for inspiring a new direction for America.

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Epilogue: A Human Face of Capital Charles S. Scontras, Historian & Research Associate Bureau of Labor Education, University of Maine On 24 March 1993, the Clinton administration announced formation of The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations. In May 1994, the commission issued a fact-finding report that documented the whirlwind of change in traditional employee-employer relationships.

President Clinton, in declaring May 1995 to be Labor History Month, added recognition to the new thrust of labor-management relations when he asserted that “today’s global marketplace demands that we establish and strengthen partnerships between employers and unions.”

It was a clear call for non-adversarial labor relations. The 1980s marked a substantial expansion in the numbers and types of employee participation efforts and workplace committees in both unionized and non-unionized shops. These were known by a variety of terms, from “quality circles” to “employee participation teams” or “total quality management teams.”

These included safety and health committees, gain-sharing plans, labormanagement training programs, information sharing forums, joint task forces for problems, employee ownership programs, worker representation on corporate boards of directors, and employee ownership programs.

For those harboring a conflict model of labor-management relations, the idea of playing on the same “team” to achieve mutually beneficial objectives of increased efficiency and productivity is difficult to accept.

To such critics, worker-management partnerships disguise incompatible interests between labor and management. There is more than an ounce of justification for such worker resistance, given earlier forms of employee representation systems, particularly “company unions,” which flourished in the 1920s and the early 1930s, and left employees without an independent organization or the power to enforce demands. While such forms of employee representation are now illegal, some labor advocates still see the shadowy ghost of company unions fluttering in the new kinds of employee representation and participation. They fear that such reforms are fueled in part by a motivation to circumvent or destroy labor unions.

Workplace policies and experiments designed to promote harmonious labor relations are not new or novel. In the late 1880s, about forty companies turned to profit-sharing to stabilize work relations or avoid unions.

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A Castle in the Clouds: Judy Taylor, “History of Labor in the State of Maine,” 2008. The eleven panels were applied to adjoining walls in the Maine Department of Labor until they were removed by the governor, in 2011, for being “partisan.” After international protest, the panels were placed in the Maine State Museum. The mural measures 36 feet long and 8 feet tall (10 by 2 meters) Charles Scontras served as the model of the shoemaker. Judy Taylor Studio, Seal Cove, Maine.

Panel 1 “The Apprentice” Apprenticeship has always provided opportunities for workers to learn a skilled trade on the job. At the center of this panel is a shoemaker teaching his craft to a young apprentice. Other scenes in this panel show apprenticeship in a variety of other trades, including hat making. The young woman reading represents the children that were often brought into apprentice workshops to read or play music to keep workers entertained as they did their jobs.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Panel 7 “ The 1937 Strike” With the support of organizers at the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), thousands of Lewiston and Auburn workers walked out of shoe mills in 1937 seeking fair wages, shorter hours, and union recognition. Despite Federal laws protecting their right to organize, workers were beaten and jailed for marching or speaking at public meetings. The image at the front of the panel shows a confrontation between marchers and police and a French language newspaper that reported on the brutality.

Images in the back show scenes from the strike, including the arrest of organizers.

Pictured also is Auburn Police Chief Harry Rowe, who sided with the manufacturers and brought in state police to stop the picketing workers. The choir image is shown as a reminder of the Catholic Church opposition to the strike. A local priest warned that the strikers would go to hell and threatened excommunication for anyone who participated in the labor dispute.

They embodied the “humanitarian sentiment” expressed by many employers. A greater number of companies sponsored contests, sports teams, housing, outings, and citizenship groups for the same purposes. An investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1900, counted fifteen different welfare measures adopted by a number of companies “for the improvement of the condition of working men.”

In 1913, Elizabeth Lewis Otey, writing for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, summarized labor’s suspicions about employers’ “benevolence”: There is a tendency in labor circles to condemn employers’ welfare work. It is claimed that much of it is tinctured with paternalism and fosters a spirit of dependence on the good will of the employer incompatible with the aims of labor, and as a result the workers never reach their full development. The demand is for rights not charity; that workers be paid enough and then left to order their lives as they see fit. It is rather taken for granted that welfare work is done at the expense of wages; that if an employe were without this particular fad the sum expended on it would be added to wages.... A further objection to welfare work is that it is begun and maintained to prevent strikes and labor organization.

Employer welfare policies clearly served another purpose as well. They reinforced the ideology of laissez-faire – the doctrines that regarded private property, freedom of contract and the laws of the marketplace as pillars of the economic order. Industrialists condemned government intervention as restraints upon individual freedom and violations of inexorable natural

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laws governing the allocation of production. This self-regulating economic system did not rule out charitable acts by individual employers. If companies provided workers with a measure of security and well-being, it would not be necessary to extend the reach of the state into the workplace. Employer welfare work thus served to contain unions and more radical alternatives to the free market system that appeared with increasing frequency, and would, in addition, hold the welfare state at bay.

The flow of managerial reform was unmistakable, and Tom Plant’s efforts at “welfare capitalism” provides a good example of such policies.

His life as a shoe worker and manufacturer occurred against a backdrop of industrial conflict – in a nation ablaze with 36,757 strikes between 1880 and 1905. This provided the context for his policies of non-adversarial labor relations.

Plant’s success with labor relations seemed to contradict those who believed that industrial conflict was inevitable in a capitalist economic order populated with “soulless corporations.” While Plant opposed the closed shop, as did many employers, he developed an organic unity with his workers. “Welfare capitalism” was designed by management to secure and control employee loyalty by providing a range of protections and benefits.

It appears to have been writ-large at the Thomas G. Plant Company, at a time when the control of work was passing to industrial engineers, who were determined to replace trial and error, and worker “soldiering,” with the “science” of work organization. A thoroughly engineered workplace left little room or respect for standard wages, valued skills, unions or collective bargaining, which were perceived as impeding scientific principles of managerial organization.

Plant’s treatment of workers reflected an enlightened self-interest in securing an efficient, stable, orderly and predictable workforce. His efforts were driven by the imperatives of large-scale factory operations, technological innovations, expanding markets, and new management concepts. But his genuine feelings of concern for the welfare of his workers also formed part of the mix of benevolent polices adapted to the increasing scale and scope of business operation that was called “welfare capitalism.”

There may have been critics of Plant’s policies, but he appeared to have remained immune to any serious charges of “industrial feudalism” or that his good treatment of workers was a form of “riot insurance.” His colleagues wrote that he “got along well with labor in Boston” and that he took “extraordinary steps” to ensure the comfort of his workers. Plant

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viewed his employees as more than units of energy, recognizing that their well-being and loyalty was as instrumental to the production of wealth as the application of modern technology. Indeed, even when technological advances negatively impacted workers, he was quick to address the problem.

Plant witnessed the surge of the Knights of Labor across the nation. The Knights were so active in the shoe industry, particularly in New England, that the strength of the Order consisted primarily of shoe workers. By the middle 1880s “nearly fifty percent of the Knights of Labor in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire (were) of the same craft.”1 Plant’s experience as a shoemaker in Lynn during these tumultuous years of labor strife doubtlessly formed part of the mix of his experience in the industry. It also may have increased his appreciation and understanding of industrial conflict and the catalogue of indignities experienced by workers.

Although Tom Plant had founded the world’s largest shoe factory and demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the country’s economic system, it cannot be said that he supported an unbridled capitalism that exploited workers and natural resources at will. His struggle with behemoths such as the United Shoe Machinery Company reveals not only his knowledge of the economy but that he saw the danger of concentrated capital to the system of capitalism itself. He recognized the threat that such power posed to the ideals of individualism, equality of opportunity, and the free market – in short, to the very philosophical underpinnings of capitalism itself.

Plant experienced first hand the abuses that a monopolistic system could inflict upon entrepreneurs struggling to survive through their own initiatives and innovations. His sentiments to this concentration of economic power were reflected in his attraction to the Progressive thought of President Theodore Roosevelt and his assault on the “malefactors of great wealth.” As a wealthy industrialist, Plant held to the belief that successful people were “stewards” of wealth who were connected to the workers and society that made their fortunes possible. In other words, they bore a responsibility for returning some of their wealth to society.

By the mid-twentieth century, the shoe industry witnessed droplets of foreign competition that quickly became a flood of imports from Japan, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, Switzerland, England, Ireland, and elsewhere. American industry and unions alike pleaded for government protection to insure the survival of their industry,

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but to no avail. With the lifting of quotas on foreign-made shoes, under President Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s, the industry’s demise was assured, and today it remains but a shadow of its former strength.

This new world of work has been made possible by new forms of science and technology. Today, workers face global markets, global competition, and global hiring halls. It is marked by liberalized trade policies, a renaissance of laissez-faire ideology, and employer demands for flexibility in business operations. This flexibility often translates into union concessions, a decline of smokestack industries, emergence of a new economy, pronounced demographic changes, rise of “contingent” workers, a declining middle class, and growing disparities in societal income and wealth. Skill no longer lasts a lifetime. No matter what one knows or does, they feel obsolete, insecure, and entertain thoughts of who or what is next to fall. For example, in 2012, about 50,000 manufacturing sites in the United States closed their doors and 6 million Americans lost their livelihood. It is a world in which the spectrum of white-collar workers is increasingly experiencing a phenomenon previously reserved for blue-collar workers – economic insecurity. We are in a world in which the respect for workers, along with the concern for their well-being and security, as shown by Tom Plant, is rapidly fading.

As a Franco-American, Plant’s success in the shoe industry stands in sharp contrast to the negative and prevailing stereotypes, the “mind-forged manacles,” that prevailed after the Civil War. In 1882, the 13th Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor dubbed the Canadian French as the “Chinese of our Eastern states,” and proceeded to offer a negative profile of the Franco-American, whose only virtue appeared to be that they were “indefatigable workers, and docile.” Such views hampered immigrants’ development and contributions to the larger society.

Plant is a lesson in individualism, hard work, struggle, foresight, selfdiscipline, and the ideal of a “self-made man.” But he was also a voice for fairness, both in the treatment of his workers and in the operation of the marketplace. He recognized that a free market could suffer from restraints imposed by concentrated power and prevent genuine opportunity for all.

Today, the search for non-adversarial relations in a global economy appears to be built more on the grounds of competitive survival and less on the paternalism of Plant and the benevolent features of “welfare capitalism.”

Perhaps, if Plant were engaged in today’s global economy, he would

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be compelled to moderate or abandon his non-adversarial labor relations and beneficence toward his workers. He serves as a reminder, however, that, even in the “new economy,” workers are more than units of energy or simply matter in motion – more than impersonal costs, fodder or disposable commodities in the production of goods and the delivery of services, whose “value” is determined solely by supply and demand or the profit motive.

Charles Scontras was born in Buffalo, New York and is the son of Greek immigrants. His mother worked in the textile mills of Biddeford, Maine while his father did shoe repair. Young Charlie apprenticed to his father and eventually assumed responsibility for their family business. Graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Business Administration, he taught high school in Oakland, Maine before attending the University of Maine to receive his M.Ed. He taught American and European History at Westbrook Junior College in Portland and then returned to the University of Maine to get his M.A. and Ph.D. in American History. Professor Scontras taught courses in Modern Society, Labor History, and Political Ideologies at the University of Maine from 1961 until he retired from teaching in 1997. He also served as a Historian and Research Associate for the Bureau of Labor Education and continues to do so today. He is the leading scholar of Maine’s labor history and an astute analyst of modern labor/management relations.

His primary work is in the research and writing of the labor history of Maine. His books include: Organized Labor & Labor Politics in Maine, 1880–1890 Two Decades of Organized Labor & Labor Politics in Maine, 1880–1900 Organized Labor in Maine: Twentieth Century Origins The Socialist Alternative: Utopian Experiments and the Socialist Party of Maine

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Collective Efforts among Maine Workers: Beginnings & Foundations, 1820–1880 In the Name of Humanity: Maine’s Crusade against Child Labor Organized Labor in Maine: War, Reaction, Depression, & the Rise of the CIO, 1914–1943 Time-Line of Selected Highlights of Maine Labor History: 1636–2003 Labor in Maine: Building the Arsenal of Democracy & Resisting Reaction at Home, 1939–1952 His latest volume is Maine Labor on the Eve of Deindustrialization, 1955– 2000. Professor Scontras anticipates that materials from these, and other publications, will eventually be converted into pamphlets and study guides for rank and file workers, public school educators, public officials, and the general citizenry.

Endnotes

1 George McNeill, The Labor Movement: The Problem of Today. Boston: A.M. Bridgman & Company, 1887: 196.

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Bibliographic Notes The first rendition of this book, over twenty years ago, was done before the internet became a feature of everyday life. As a result, most of the research was done in the old-fashioned way with pen, postage stamps, carbon paper, cassette tapes, telephone, and in-person visits. Some newer methods are in evidence, as can be seen by URL and e-mail references. The traditional methods are the most reliable, but the innovations certainly have allowed for more rapid and expansive access to previously unreachable data.

Therefore, this book is a hybrid of traditions.

The early Plante and Rodrigue family information is somewhat sketchy due to poor record-keeping before the U.S. Civil War. Many records also are dispersed between far-flung locales. A problem of trans-border records is that political jurisdictions split them apart. In this case, birth records are in Québec, death records are in Maine, and marriage records could be anywhere!

Almost all of Tom Plant’s personal papers, photos, and documents have vanished. His second wife, Olive Dewey, had stored much of this material in her family’s bank building in Toulon, Illinois. After family members passed away, the building’s new owners had this material carted to the dump. Ken Plant visited Olive in California and was offered some items, including a biography that Tom had commissioned and then annotated.

Since Ken was returning home from a tour of duty with the Marine Corps and was en route to another assignment, he declined to take them with him at that time. No one knows what became of these items.

Much of the story of Plant’s conflict with the United Shoe Machinery Company is difficult to piece together with the diffuse information at hand. Since his private and corporate papers are missing, we don’t have his version of the story. However, the newspapers of the day tended to view Plant’s position with favor and so this helps to balance the record. Many of the records of the USMC are also missing since the closing of the company.

A significant help in understanding this conflict were the USMC records saved by Clark Goodchild, a USMC employee.1 Also of great help is the manuscript history of the USMC by Gaynor O’Gorman, Sr. O’Gorman worked all his life for the USMC and, towards the end of his career, was given the task of writing the firm’s history. He produced an 800-page manuscript, which was never published. It appears to have been compiled from newspapers, reminiscences, impressions of employees, and

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other materials presently lost or dispersed. O’Gorman’s account is informal and inconsistent. Nonetheless, it is an important document. A good bit of deduction is required, but it provides valuable information that is elsewhere unavailable or unconsolidated. Probably its greatest use for historians is as a guide to primary sources. I have not sufficiently mined O’Gorman’s text, extracting only a few relevant parts. As regards the Shoe Machinery War, it seems that O’Gorman used USMC witness testimony as a source of his information. Reference to opposing witnesses helps balance the story.

Most of the original documents, papers and minutes of the Bald Peak Country Club are missing, as well as Olive Plant’s memoir to Elizabeth Wilkin. Wilkin wrote a chronicle of the early years of Plant’s estate and country club. Part of the information for Wilkin’s book came from club members, but, as the author comments, some it could not be published, and information came with “strings tied, if not strong ropes.”2 Wayne Wakefield (1938–2008) worked for the Bald Peak Colony Club.

He had also been estate manager for the Castle in the Clouds in the 1960s and had built up an important collection of materials about Tom Plant, Lucknow, and the country club. He brought his collection to work the day before his untimely death and it was never returned. One can only hope that whoever retained this collection, so important for my early research, has kept it together and will credit Wakefield for his stewardship of these documents.

Many newspaper and magazine articles, as well as tourist brochures and booklets, have been written about the New Hampshire phase of Plant’s life.

The material they contain is, for the most part, unattributed and filled with distortions, repeating mistaken assumptions or extrapolating small details into major errors. I have used these articles with guarded judgment, since they sometime contain material that is otherwise irretrievable. When a contradiction occurs, I have selected accounts closest to the time and place of the reported incident or from writers with access to the people who would have known the details. This material is also helpful in tracing the evolution of a myth.

The Jamaica Plain News, Roslindale News and West Roxbury News are all different names for the same newspaper. A full press run of this newspaper is kept by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. The microfilm copy of this paper at the Boston Public Library is incomplete.3 Wayne Lovington, who researched Tom Plant’s career for his senior thesis at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, deserves a lot of credit for

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assembling legal and business documentation about the USMC controversy and providing an initial frame of reference.

In the endnotes and the following bibliography, an important convention should be noted. Details for public records and general newspaper items that are cited only once are fully documented in the endnotes but not detailed in the bibliography. News items attributed to an author or cited more than once have a full reference in the bibliography, with a short endnote citation.

Documents that have not been given a location in the bibliography are either readily available through various institutions or have been placed in the Thomas G. Plant Collection at the Sagadahoc History & Genealogy Room of the Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine. I ask people who find materials to contribute copies to this collection.

Endnotes 1 Goodchild.

2 Kip Scott is Ms. Wilkin’s daughter. Scott, Letter; Interview. Wilkin: Preface.

3 Barrows.

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Bibliography L’Abeille. “Émigration des Canadiens Vers Les États-Unis.” Textes De L’Exode, Maurice Poteet (editor), page 34. Montréal: Guérin littérature, 1987.

Adams, Hazel. Bath, Maine, Interview with Barry Rodrigue, 26 January 2007. Notes on copy of the inner cover of a family Bible with Plant family genealogy.

Allen, Charles. “Some Huguenot & Other Early Settlers on the Kennebec in the Present Town of Dresden.” Unpublished text read before the Maine Historical Society on 17 March 1892. Held by the Maine State Library, Augusta.

Allen, Frederick. The Shoe Industry. New York: Holt, 1922.

Allen, James. Catholics in Maine: A Social Geography. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1971.

Allison, Henry. Dublin Days Old & New: New Hampshire Fact & Fancy.

New York: Exposition Press, 1952.

American Social History Project. Who Built America? Working People & the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture & Society, Volume II: From the Guilded Age to the Present. New York: Pantheon, 1992.

American Federation of Labor, Voting Sheet for J. Addison Noyes, about the T.G. Plant Company Boycott, 23 September 1901. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

Anctil, Pierre. Aspects of Class Ideology in a New England Ethnic Minority: The Franco-Americans of Woonsocket, Rhode Island (1865–1929). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1981.

Ashjian, Cristina. “New England Arts & Crafts Architecture: Living in Harmony with Nature,” Classic Country Life Magazine, Summer 2007: 56–61.

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—“Tom Plant’s ‘Lucknow Castle.’” Lecture for the Lakes Region Conservation Trust, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, September 2004; Tuftonboro Historical Society, Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, May 2006; Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine, January 2007.

—“Plant’s Castle Revisited: Country Life at Lucknow.” Lecture for the Castle Preservation Society, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, August 2007; Centre Harbor Historical Society, Center Harbor, New Hampshire, June 2008; Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine, June 2009.

—“The Plant Family at Tuftonboro Neck: Photographs from the Plant Family Albums.” Lecture for the Tuftonboro Historical Society, Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, June 2009; New Hampshire Boat Museum, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, July 2012.

—“Moultonborough’s Estate Builders.” Lecture for the Moultonborough Public Library, July 2009; Moultonborough Heritage Commission, September 2009; Moultonborough Historical Society, May 2010; Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

—“Kona Farm: The Most Beautiful and Complete Gentleman’s Estate in New England.” Lecture for Moultonborough Public Library, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, July 2010; New Hampshire Boat Museum, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, August 2011; Kona Mansion Inn, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, September 2011.

—“‘Not Alone in the Wilderness’: Tom Plant’s Bald Peak Club.” Lecture for the Moultonborough Heritage Commission, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, July 2011; Bald Peak Colony Club, Melvin Village, New Hampshire, July 2011.

Austin, Samuel; & others. Contract to cut the road to Canada, 27 June 1817.

Eastern Land Office, Instructions to Surveyors, Box 13, Item 124. In the Archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts.

243

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Babcock, Robert. Gompers in Canada: Study in American Continentalism Before the First World War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

—“Samuel Gompers & the French-Canadian Worker, 1900–14.” The American Review of Canadian Studies, Spring 1973: 47–66.

—“Economic Development in Portland (Me.) & Saint John (N.B.) During the Age of Iron & Steam, 1850–1914.” The American Review of Canadian Studies (Spring 1979): 3–37.

Bald Peak Country Club. Bald Peak Summer Colony: Melvin Village, New Hampshire. Melvin Village: Bald Peak Country Club, circa 1922. Held by Kip & John Scott, Melvin Village, New Hampshire.

—Program of the Third Annual Invitation Tournament, 23–25 July 1937. Held by Kip and John Scott, Melvin Village, New Hampshire.

Ball, Frank. Secretary of State, Augusta, Maine, Letter to Walter Glidden, Bath, Maine, 22 November 1917. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Baltzell, E. Digby. The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & Caste in America. New York: Random House, 1964.

Banks, W.J.; Louise Banks. Interview, Missouri (St. Louis), for Barry Rodrigue, 1994. Held by the Maine Folklife Collection, NA2394, University of Maine, Orono, Maine.

Barrows, R.S. “Change of Ownership,” Jamaica Plain News, 23 December 1899.

Barry, William. “Fires of Bigotry.” Downeast Magazine, October 1989: 44– 47, 77.

Batchelder, Charles. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Letters 1, 2 & 3 to Walter Glidden, Bath, Maine, 26 September 1935. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

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Bath, City of (Maine). Assessor’s Office, Register Book, 1879–1888.

—Clerk’s Office. Index of Marriage Records.

—List of Marriage Banns Published,” 3 August 1844.

—List of Marriage Returns,” 19 August 1844.

—Birth & Death Records, 1842–1949.

—Department of Cemetaries & Parks, Burial Index, alpha index.

Bath Daily Times, “Obituary: Mrs. Sophia Plant,” 6 May 1899.

—“Two Bath Boys,” 25 April 1902.

—“Some Recollections of Thomas G. Plant,” 28 July 1941.

—“Bath Benefactor,” 29 July 1941.

Bath Independent, “World’s Greatest Shoe Manufacturer,” 4 June 1910.

—“Bath Benefactor Thomas G. Plant Dies in Laconia,” 31 July 1941.

—“Birthplace of Thomas G. Plant,” 21 April 1949.

Bélanger, Albert. Guide Officiel des Franco-Américains. Fall River: By the author, circa 1899–1940.

Bélanger, France & others. La Beauce et les Beaucerons: Portraits d’une région, 1737–1987. Saint-Joseph: La Société du patrimone des Beaucerons, 1988.

Beliveau, Albert. Diaries. Held at the Franco-American Collection, Lewiston-Auburn College, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston, Maine.

Bénézit, Emmanuel. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1976.

245

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Bennett, Marilyn. “Two nursing homes merge in Bath.” Unidentified news clipping, 12 December 1973. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home.

Berry, Jean. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 29 March 1989.

Blewett, Mary. Men, Women & Work: Class, Gender & Protest in the New England Shoe Industry, 1780–1910. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

—Interview (telephone), Lowell, Massachusetts, with Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 25 November 1991.

Bliss, Michael. A Canadian Millionaire: The Life & Business Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle, Bart., 1858–1939. Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1978.

Boot & Shoe Recorder, “A.C. Grover Dies,” Boot & Shoe Recorder 77 (23), 28 August 1920: 64.

Boot & Shoe Workers Union, Letter to the Members of the General Executive Board, 23 September 1901. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

Boston Evening Transcript, “Recent Deaths: S.C. Griggs, the Leading Western Publisher,” 7 April 1897.

—“Sherman L. Whipple Dies in Brookline,” 20 October 1930.

Boston Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued by Wife,” 20 January 1911.

Boston Journal, “Absolute Decree for Mrs. Plant,” 30 April 1913.

Boston News Bureau, “Popular Illusions: Why Mr. Plant Sold Out to the United Shoe Machinery Co.” 9 October 1911.

Bowden, Murray. The Problem of Conscription in Maine During the Civil War. Orono: M.A. thesis, University of Maine, 1948.

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Bown Thurston Company. The Sagadahoc County Directory for 1892-93.

Portland, Maine: Bown Thurston Company, 1892.

Bradley, David, Chief Counsel, United States, Department of Justice, Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 9 July 1990, 4 December 1990.

Brandeis, Louis. In “How Thomas G. Plant was Floored,” The Boston Common, 6 January 1912.

Brault, Gerard. The French Canadian Heritage in New England. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986.

Brooks, Debbi Adams. Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 23 March 1988.

Boston City Police. Interview with unidentified desk sergeant at the Berkeley Street Police Headquarters, by Barry Rodrigue, 19 September 1988.

Brown, Harold. Interview, with Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 12 March 1991.

Bruchey, Stuart. Enterprise: The Dynamic Economy of a Free People.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Burnett, Robert. In Rosalind Libbey. New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, New Jersey, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Orono, Maine, 31 August 1992.

California. Department of Health Services. Certificate of Death for Olive Dewey Plant, 22 November 1976.

Caron, Ernest. Managing Director, Canadian General & Shoe Machinery Company, Lévis, Québec, Letter to Charles Jones, Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, Boston, 13 March 1911. In the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

247

A Castle in the Clouds:

Carter, Fred. Lynn, Massachusetts, Letter to Horace Eaton, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 19 January 1898. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

Case, Mary. In Memoriam, Thomas G. Plant, 1859–1941. Melvin Village: By the author, 1941. Held by Kip & John Scott, Melvin Village, New Hampshire.

Castle in the Clouds. Tourist brochure. Moultonborough, New Hampshire, undated.

—Tour guide notes, Series Nº 1, pages 1–6; Series Nº 2, pages 1–6; Series Nº 3, pages 1–4. Moultonborough: Undated, unattributed – circa 1962. Held by Wayne Wakefield, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

—“A Castle Awaits your Climb to the Clouds,” tourist brochure, undated.

—Castle in the Clouds, Lucknow Estate. 9 December 2013 URL: (http://www.castleintheclouds.org/).

Chartier, Armand. Histoire des Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle Angleterre, 1775–1990. Sillery: Septentrion, 1991.

Chace Jr., J. Map of Sagadahoc Co. Maine From Actual Surveys. Philadelphia: J. Chace, Jr., 1858. Archives, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine.

Chandonnet, Thomas-Aimé. Notre-Dame des Canadiens & les Canadiens aux États-Unis. Montréal : George Desbarats, 1872.

Chicago Directory Company. The Chicago Blue Book of Selected Names of Chicago & Suburban Towns. Chicago: Chicago Directory Company, 1893.

Chicago Record Herald, “Thomas G. Plant Sued By Wife, A Chicagoian,” 20 January 1911.

—“Plant & Wife Reconciled,” 4 June 1912.

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Chicago Tribune, “S.C. Griggs Dies from Paralysis,” 6 April 1897.

Childs, William. Director, Bald Peak Country Club, New York City. Letter to the Membership, circa September 1924; 29 October 1925. Held by Kip & John Scott, Melvin Village, New Hampshire.

Chodos, Robert; Eric Hamovitch. Quebec & the American Dream. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1991.

Clark, Ada E.B. Clark’s Boston Blue Book. Boston: Sampson & Murdock, 1900–1922.

Clark, Edward. Clark’s Boston Blue Book. Boston: Edward Clark, 1897– 1899.

Clark, Victor. History of Manufactures in the United States, 1860–1914.

Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1928.

Coburn, F.W. “Taking Mountain Off Map to Create Baronial Estate,” Sunday Herald, Boston, Massachusetts, 13 August 1922.

Coffin, Edward. “The Untold Story of the Great Kennebec Dam at Augusta.”

Augusta: Unpublished, circa 1991. Held by the Kennebec Historical Society, Augusta, Maine.

Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 13 March 1911. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Constantine, J. Robert (editor). Letters of Eugene V. Debs, 3 volumes.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

Coulombe, Isobel. Ipswich Historical Society, Ipswich, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 28 July 1993.

Country Life (Garden City, New York) “Lucknow: A Mountain & Lake

249

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Estate,” October 1924: 7–16 (a-h).

—“Blending Architecture with Nature,” April 1924: 48–49.

Courville, Serge. Entre Ville & Campagne: L’essor du village dans les seigneuries du Bas-Canada. Québec: Laval University Press, 1990.

Courville, Serge; Barry Rodrigue, Pierre Poulin, Claude Pronovost. “La Beauce au XIXe Siècle,” pp. 63–86, Études canadiennes/Canadian Studies #50, 2001.

Courville, Serge; Normand Séguin. Rural Life in Nineteenth-Century Quebec. Ottawa: The Canadian Historical Association, 1989.

Cramer, Kenneth. Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire, Letters to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 20 November 1991, 3 December 1991, 20 December 1991.

Cunningham, Jim. “Castle in the Clouds.” New Hampshire Profiles, July 1973: 78–80.

Cyr, Paul. New Bedford Public Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 19 October 1992.

Dailey, Wallace. Curator, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 3 October 1988.

Daily Evening Item, Souviner Edition, Lynn, Massachusetts, 26 November 1889; 1892.

—“Shoe Manufacturers Ruled Supreme in Lynn in 1892,” 18 December 1927.

Daniels, William. Curator, Peabody Historical Society, Peabody, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 3 January 1992.

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Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire), Transcripts, 1907–1909, Thomas C. Plant and William F. Plant.

Dine, Richard, Chairman, Foreign Bondholders Protective Council, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 1 August 1990.

D. Appelton & Company. The American Annual Cyclopedia & Register of Important Events of the Year. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1891.

Damrell, Charles. A Half Century of Boston’s Buildings. Boston: Louis Hager, 1895.

Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonel Dummer Sewall Chapter, Bath, Maine. Marriage & Baptismal Records, Winter Street Congregational Church, Bath, Maine, 1947.

Davis, John. “Castle in the Clouds.” Moultonborough, New Hampshire: Unpublished draft of booklet, circa 1962. Held by Wayne Wakefield, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Dawley, Alan. Class & Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Day, Clarence; & others. Vital Statistics from the Paper “Maine Farmer”: For the Period 1833–1852, Volumes I & II, Marriages. Orono: Maine Agricultural Extension Service, circa 1945.

Dewey, John. E-letter to Barry Rodrigue, Lewiston, Maine, 8 October 2003.

Diamond, Sigmund. The Reputation of the American Businessman.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955.

Dion-Levesque, Rosaire. Silhouettes: Franco-Américaines. Manchester: L’Association Canado-Américaine, 1957.

Dionne, Narcisse. Origine des Familles les Canadiens-Francais. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1969.

251

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Doty, C. Stewart. The First Franco-Americans: New England Life Histories from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1938–1939. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1985.

—“How Many Frenchmen Does It Take to...?” in Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader, pages 330–344, Nelson Madore & Barry Rodrigue (editors). Gardiner: Tilbury House Publishing, 2007.

Drake, Paul. “Accuse Thomas G. Plant of Desecrating Graves...Millionaire Protests He Was “Beautifying” Lot.” Boston American, 2 August 1914.

Drew Allis Company. The Newton Directory. Worcester: Drew Allis Company, 1903–1917.

Eaton, Horace. Letter to E.M. Bannister, 21 September 1896. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

—Letter to Fred Carter, 19 January 1898. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

Eldridge, Hope; Dorothy Swaine Thomas. Population Redistribution & Economic Growth, United States, 1870–1950, Volume 3, Demographic Analyses & Interrelations. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1964.

Ellis, George. Bacon’s Dictionary of Boston. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886.

Eloi-Gérard, Frère. Recueil de généalogies des comtés de Beauce-DorchesterFrontenac: 1625–1946, Volume 9. Beauceville (P.Q.): Collège du SacréCoeur, 1946.

Emery, Frederick. Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Frederic Snow, Boston, Massachusetts, 27 April 1910. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

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Estaver, Paul. “King of the Castle,” New Hampshire Profiles, June 1958: 12– 15.

E. Upton & Son. Bath Directory for 1888. Bath: E. Upton & Son, 1888.

Everson, Jennie. Tidewater Ice of the Kennebec River. Augusta: Maine State Museum, Maine Heritage Series 1, 1970.

Eves, Jamie. Yankee Immigrants: Ecological Crisis & the Settlement of Maine, 1763–1825. M.A. thesis, University of Maine, 1988.

Fairburn, William. Merchant Sail, Volume V. Center Lovell: By the author, 1944–1945.

Falardeau, Jean-Charles. “Antécédents, Début & Croissance.” La Sociologie au Québec, 135–165, Edited by the Department of Sociology, Laval University. Québec: Laval University Press, 1975.

Faler, Paul. Mechanics & Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts: 1780–1860. Albany: State University of New York, 1981.

Fecteau, Albert. The French Canadian Community of Waterville, Maine.

University of Maine, M.A. thesis, 1952.

Ferland, Jacques. “‘Not for Sale’ – American Technology & Canadian Shoe Factories: The United Shoe Machinery Company of Canada, 1899–1912.”

American Review of Canadian History, Spring 1987: 59–82.

—“In Search of the Unbound Promethia: A Comparative View of Women’s Activism in Two Quebec Industries, 1869–1908.” Labour/Le Travail, Spring 1989: 11–44.

Ferron, Madeleine; Robert Cliche. Les Beaucerons ces insoumis. Ville LaSalle, Québec: Hurtubise HMH, 1982.

Fleming, John; Walter Sturtevant, Ruie Curtis. Richmond on the Kennebec.

Richmond: Richmond Historical Committee, 1966.

253

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Florida, State of. Office of Vital Statistics. Certificate of Death for Caroline Griggs Plant, 3 June 1947.

Florsheim Shoe Company. “The Florsheim Shoe Company.” Chicago: Florsheim Shoe Company, undated. Held by the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.

Fogg, Sanford. Deputy Attorney General, Augusta, Maine, Letter to Walter Glidden, Bath, Maine, 30 September 1935. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Freely, John. Blue Guide: Boston & Cambridge. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.

Friedman, Milton; Anna Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Gable, John. The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt & the Progressive Party. Port Washington: National University Publications, 1978.

Galbreath, Ellen. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Portland, Maine, 15 August 1986.

Garant, André. Saint-François-de-Beauce, Je Me Souviens. Beauceville: L’Imprimerie l’éclaireur, 1985.

Gaston, Snow & Saltonstall. Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Endicott, Johnson & Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 16 June 1910. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

George, Lanora. “Castle in the Clouds, 1879–1990.” Moultonborough, New Hampshire: Unpublished narrative, 1990. At the Moultonborough Public Library, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Gifford, Livingston. New York City. Letter to Thomas G. Plant, Roxbury, Massachusetts, 13 June 1910. In the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather

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Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Gilbert-Léveillé, Pierrette; with René Léveillé. Répertoire des Mariages, Baptêmes & Sépultures, Paroisse Saint-François-de-la-Nouvelle-Beauce, 1765–1850, Beauceville. Sainte-Foy: Société de généalogie de Québec, 1986.

Glidden, Walter. Bath, Maine, Letters to Thomas Plant, New York City, 3 January 1917, 6 January 1917, 8 January 1917; Nassau, Bahamas, 13 January 1917, 26 January 1917; Palm Beach, Florida, 19 February 1917, 3 March 1917; Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 28 June 1918, 12 September 1935, 17 September 1935, 23 September 1935 and 4 October 1935. Held by the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—To Frank Ball, Secretary of State, Augusta, Maine, 23 November 1917. Held by the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—Letter to Charles Batchelder, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 24 September 1935. Held by the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—Letter to Ernest Thornton, Deputy Secretary of State, Augusta, Maine, 22 November 1917. Held by the Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Gonnerman, Elizabeth Tobey. In Lorrie Baird, “Lucknow Revisited,” The Weirs Times, 18 June 1992.

Goodchild, W. Clark Jr.. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Beverly, Massachusetts, November 1991, January 1992. Interview notes taken, along with relevant correspondence.

Goodrich, Carter. Government Promotion of American Canals & Railroads. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.

Goodspeed’s Bookshop. Interview by Barry Rodrigue with unidentified woman in the Autograph Department, Boston, 10 March 1988.

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Goodwin, Marion. Moultonborough, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Orono, Maine, 23 August 1994.

Gordon, Milton. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, & National Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Gould, Ken. “A Castle Awaits Your Climb to the Clouds,” Union Leader (Manchester, New Hampshire), 30th Annual State of New Hampshire Edition, 27 June 1980.

Graves, Eugene. A History of Maine’s Nineteenth Century Beef Industry.

M.A. thesis, University of Maine, 1967.

Gray, Patricia. The History of Castle in the Clouds. Boston: Bromley & Company, no date.

Green, M. A. “How Shoes are Made by Machines.” A Popular History of American Invention, Volume II, Material Resources & Labor-Saving Machines, Waldemar Kaempffert (editor). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924.

Greenough, W.A. & Company. The New Bedford City Directory, 1887.

Boston: W.A. Greenough & Company, 1887.

Greenough, Jones & Company. Greenough, Jones & Co.’s Directory of...

Lewiston & Auburn For 1872. Boston: Greenough, Jones & Company, 1872.

—Directory of...Bath, Brunswick & Richmond for 1874, 1876–1877, 1880, 1883–1884, 1887.

Gribbel, John & Eleanor. Interview by Barry Rodrigue, Bald Peak Colony Club, Melvin Village, New Hampshire, 5 June 1993.

Grover, Elliot Sr. Alfred Grover biography, in Genealogy notes, Ch. E No. 1.

Held by Elliot & Martha Grover Jr. of Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Grover, Martha. Moultonborough, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 6 January 2014; E-mail on 11 January 2014.

256

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Hains, Robert. Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Frederic Snow, Boston, 27 April 1910. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection,1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Halpenny, Francess; Jean Hamelin. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1801–1820, Volume 5. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983.

Hammatt, A. Map of Part of the Town of Bath. New York: J. & E. Bisbee, circa 1830. Archives, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine.

Handler, Richard. Nationalism & the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.

Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1979.

Hansen, Marcus; John Brebner. The Mingling of the Canadian & American Peoples. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1940.

Harris, R. Cole. The Seigneurial System in Early Canada: A Geographical Study. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

—“The Simplification of Europe Overseas.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, December 1977: 469–483.

Harvey, Lee. Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology. Aldershot: Avebury, 1989.

Hastings, Peter. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison: Soundview Press, 1985.

Hasty, Marie. Matron, Old Folks Home, Bath, Maine. Letter to Walter Glidden, Bath, 6 September 1918. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The American Notebooks. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932.

257

A Castle in the Clouds:

Hills, Arnold. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Augusta, Maine, May 1989, 10 September 1991.

Hilton, Elisha. Letters to the Maine State Legislature, 14 January 1836, 22 May 1848. Legislative Papers: MSA 1/2, 1836 Chap 23, Box 50 and MSA 1/3, 1848, Env 6, Box 198. In the Maine State Archives, Augusta, Maine.

Holt, Alfred. Genealogies of Bath Families, Volume I. Held by the Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine.

Houghton, George. Secretary, New England Shoe & Leather Association, Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Charles Jones, Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 19 March 1908. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Howard, Robert. The Horse in America. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1965.

Hughes, Thomas. “Thomas Alva Edison & the Rise of Electricity.” Technology in America, Carroll Pursell (editor). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990.

Humber, William. Cheering for the Home Team: The Story of Baseball in Canada. Erin: The Boston Mills Press, 1983.

International Shoe Company. 25th Anniversary Progress Club: 1917–1942.

Unattributed company booklet. Held by the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.

Ives, Edward. George Magoon & the Down East Game War: History, Folklore, & the Law. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

—University of Maine, Orono, Maine, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, Spring 1992.

J. Chace Jr. & Company; & others. A Business Directory of the Subscribers to the New Map of Maine. Portland: J. Chace Jr. & Company, Sanborn & Carter, Bailey & Noyes, 1861.

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Jackman Bicentennial Book Committee. The History of the Moose River Valley. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Printing, 1976.

Jackman, James. Letter to the Maine State House of Representatives, 11 February 1835. Legislative Papers: MSA 1/2, 1835, Chap 36, Box 48. In the Maine State Archives, Augusta.

Jamaica Plain News, “Contention in Plant’s Shoe Factory,” 23 December 1899.

—“Thomas G. Plant Co.,” 19 October 1901.

—“A Prosperous Local Industry,” 4 April 1908.

James T. White & Company. The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 19. New York: James T. White & Company, 1926.

—The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 26. New York: James T. White & Company, 1937.

—The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 40. Clifton: James T. White & Company, 1955.

Jewell, Florence. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 12 March 1991. Secondary information included from Ruth Mackenzie.

Johnson, Trevor. Librarian, Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 23 October 1991.

Jones, Charles; Mr. Reed. “Charles H. Jones Partner Endorses United Shoe Machinery.” Unattributed clipping. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, Mss. 641, C.734/Volume 7, 115, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Jongers, Alphonse. Portrait of T.G. Plant. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

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Jordan, Terry. German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in NineteenthCentury Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966.

Kealey, Gregory; Bryan Palmer. Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Kelley, Barbara. Kona Farm: A Showplace in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. Moultonborough: Barbara Kelley, 1989.

Kingsbury, Henry; Simeon Deyo (editors). Illustrated History of Kennebec County, Maine: 1799–1892. New York City: Blake, 1892.

Knight, Charles. “Old Time Ball Games & Teams When ‘Tommy’ Plant was Catcher,” Bath Daily Times (Bath, Maine) 1 September 1921.

Labbie, Edith. “New England Castle Built by Bath Man Lures Maine Camera Fans,” Lewiston Journal (Lewiston, Maine) 5 December 1959.

Lamb, Susan. “Open house will honor memory of Thomas Plant.” The Times Record (Brunswick, Maine) 21 October 1983.

Lamprey, Robert. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Center Harbor, New Hampshire, 21 July 1993.

Langford & Chase. The Bath, Brunswick & Richmond Directory for 1867-8.

Boston: Langford & Chase, 1867.

Lebel, Gérard. Québec City, Québec, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, 2 June 1988.

Leonard, Levi; Josiah Seward. The History of Dublin, N.H. Dublin: Town of Dublin, 1920.

Leslie, Kathleen. Archivist, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, 19 November 1991.

Lewis, Lathrop. Gorham, Maine. Letter to John Merrick, Hallowell, Maine, 16 July 1817. Eastern Land Office Letters: Box 52, Item 2. Held by the

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Archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts.

Limmer, Peter Jr. Interview with Barry Rodrige, Intervale, New Hampshire, 7 November 2013. Held by the Maine Folklife Center, University of Maine, Orono.

Little, John. Ethno-Cultural Transition & Regional Identity in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1989.

Locke, Joseph & others. Letter to the Maine State Legislature, February 1832. Legislative Papers: MSA 1/2, 1832, Chap 74, Box 37. Held by the Maine State Archives, Augusta, Maine.

Louder, Dean; Eric Waddell. Du Continent Perdu à l’Archipel Retrouvé: Le Québec & l’Amérique française. Québec: Laval University Press, 1983.

Lovington, Wayne. “Thomas Gustave Plant: The Earl of Ossipee Park.”

Senior Thesis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Massachusetts), 1980.

Lynn Lasters Protective Union. Lynn Lasters Protective Union Collection, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

MacDonald, Tom. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Coburn Gore, Maine, 28 July 1993.

Madore, Nelson; Barry Rodrigue. Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader. Gardiner: Tilbury House Publishing, 2007.

Maine, State of. Archives, Index File Card for Antoine Plant, First Maine Battery of Light Artillery; Index File Card for Antony Plant, Seventh Maine Volunteer Infantry.

—Bath Municipal Court. Roderick vs. Roderick, Case 163, 24 March 1856. Court Records, Volume I, 1 January 1856 to 23 September 1858, page 43. Held by the Maine State Archives, Augusta, Maine.

—Legislature. Joint Standing Committee on State Roads. Report, 10 February 1832, Maine Legislative Reports, State Archives, Augusta.

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—Act to incorporate the Kennebec Steam Navigation Company, 29 January 1822.

—Act to Incorporate the Old Folks Home in Bath. Acts & Resolves, 1917: 452.

—Probate Court, Sagadahoc County. Adoption records, Mary Adelina Rodrick, née Sawell, 2 September 1889.

—Department of Health & Human Services; Data, Research & Vital Statistics. Death certificate for Anthony Plant, 30 June 1895.

—Death certificate for Sophia Plant, 5 May 1899.

—Secretary of State, Bureau of Corporations, Elections & Commissions.

Plant Brothers & Company, File Card, 1917–1927.

—Certificate of Organization, Plant Brothers & Company, 27 February 1917.

—Sagadahoc County. Deed Registry. Bath, Maine.

Malaspina, Ann. “A Dream with a View,” New Hampshire Profiles, June 1986, pages 34–41.

Manchester Leader, “Alfred C. Grover, Vice President of Plant Co., is Dead,” Manchester, New Hampshire, 25 August 1920.

Mara, John. “The Shoe Workers.” American Federationist. New York: American Federation of Labor, October 1931: 1223–1226.

Marcus, Alan; Howard Segal. Technology in America: A Brief History. New York City: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989.

Marden, Elizabeth Pynn. “Tom Plant & L.G. Pynn.” Interview notes of Patricia Gray, 1980s. Held by Patricia Gray, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

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Marsteller, Ann. Librarian, Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, Aiea, Hawaii, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 2 October 1991.

Marx, Walter. “An Unforgettable Night in Jamaica Plain in 1976.” Draft of article, 4 January 1990. Held by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

—Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 25 May 1993.

Massachusetts, Commonwealth of. Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Twelfth Annnual Report, 1881.

—Department of Labor, Labor Bulletin, “Industrial Agreements,” July 1904: 220.

—State Board of Conciliation & Arbitration, Annual Report for the Year Ending December 31, 1907, Publication Nº 40, 1908.

—Judicial Branch.

—Superior Court, Essex County. Thomas G. Plant Company v.

Lasters Protective Union, Nº 4468 (December 1898), Volume 208: 389.

—Superior Court, Suffolk County. Elizabeth Phillips v. T.G. Plant Company, Nº 40295 (25 January 1907).

—Libel for Divorce, Caroline Griggs Plant v. Thomas Gustave Plant, Divorce Proceeding, Nº 6944, 1911–1913.

—John Kelly Contracting Company v. T.G. Plant, Nº 103541, 20 October 1919.

—Everett D. Plant v. Rose T. Potter, Nº 121538, 5 April 1920.

—Supreme Court, James Hutchinson v. T.G. Plant, 218 Mass 148, 105 NE 1017.

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—Harry Smith v. T.G. Plant, 216 Mass 91, 103 NE 224. Mass SC 42.

—Legislature, Resolve authorizing the commissioners for the sale of public lands, in the District of Maine, to lay out a road to the Canada Line, 12 June 1817. Resolves of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Passed at the Several Sessions of the General Court, Holden in Boston.

Boston: Massachusetts General Court, 12 June 1817: 422.

—Chapter 469, Acts of 1907, “An Act to regulate the lease & sale of Machinery, Tolls, Implements & Appliances.”

—Norfolk County, Deed Registry. Dedham, Massachusetts.

—Secretary of State, Corporations Division, Certificate of Organization, T.G. Plant Company, Nº 548, 26 June 1893–15 April 1902.

—“File Card for Thomas G. Plant Company, 3 August 1899.”

Superior Court.

—Registry of Deeds, Essex County, Salem, Massachusetts. Everett Dunbar to William Plant (12 July 1893), Book 1385:105–106.

—Suffolk County. Deed Registry. Boston, Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Technology Review, 1912, Volume 14: 643.

May, Heather. Associate, Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, New York City, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 11 September 1991.

McAvoy-Weissman, Muriel. Concord, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 17 November 1991.

McCallum, John. Unequal Beginnings: Agriculture & Economic Development in Quebec & Ontario until 1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.

McDermott, Charles. A History of the Shoe & Leather Industries. Boston: John Denehy & Company, 1920.

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McDowall, Duncan. Steel at the Sault: Francis H. Clergue, Sir James Dunn, & the Algoma Steel Corporation, 1901–1956. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.

McMaster, John. A History of the People of the United States, From the Revolution to the Civil War, Volume 8, 1850–1861. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1921.

Mellow, James. Nathaniel Hawthorne in his Times. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Merritt, Ernest. “Frozen Gold: The Ice Industry on the Kennebec.” Maine: A History Through Selected Readings, pages 168–171, Edward Schriver & David Smith (editors). Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1985.

Miller, Emily. Librarian, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 22 January 1992.

“Millionaire Plant’s Son Get’s a Job to Win a Bride,” unidentified newspaper clipping, circa 1914. In William Plant File, Thomas G. Plant Collection.

Morgan, Jonathan. Letter to the Maine Senate & House of Representatives, 14 January 1822. Legislative Papers: 1822, PS 19-56. Maine State Archives, Augusta.

Mundy, James. Hard Times, Hard Men: Maine & the Irish, 1830-60.

Scarborough: Harp Publications, 1990.

Muñiz, Humberto Garcia. Graduate student, Columbia University, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 30 December 1991.

National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association, List of Shoe & Leather & Kindred Trade Organizations, circa 1911. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School

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of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Nelson, Daniel. Managers & Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.

Nelson, Ralph. Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895–1956.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.

New England Shoe & Leather Association, Boston, Massachusetts.

Resolution opposing merger of Boston & Maine and New Haven Railroads, 14 March 1908. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C 734, C. 1, F. Royalty Case, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

New Hampshire, State of. Carroll County. Deed Registry. Ossipee.

—Hillsborough County. Deed Registry. Manchester.

—Judicial Branch. Carroll County, Probate Court. Petition for Change of Name & Decree: Amy Plant Vantassel (error), William Plant Van Tassel, Margaret Plant Van Tassel. 29 November 1926.

—Estate of T.G. Plant.: 1941–1943.

—Secretary of State, Corporations Division. Papers Authorizing Appointment of the Secretary of State as Attorney, Plant Brothers & Company, 8–10 March 1917.

—Division of Vital Records Administration, Death Certificate: Thomas G. Plant, 25 July 1941.

New Jersey, State of. Department of State. Corporate Status Report, T.G. Plant Company, Folder Nº C2805.

—Record Card for Manufacturers Machine Company.

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—Certificate of Incorporation, Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company, alpha index.

New York Times, “Shoe Machinery Company Sues,” 8 July 1910.

—“Facts About the Situation in the Shoe Industry,” 9 July 1910.

—“Mrs. Plant Gets Decree,” 29 October 1912.

—“For Sale: A Mountain & Lake Estate – Six Thousand Three Hundred Acres,” 21 August 1927.

—“F.L. Emery Dead; Patent Attorney,” 17 February, 1938.

—“J.H. Emery, 81, Dies; Ex-Merchant Here,” 3 March 1941.

—“T.C. (error) Plant is Dead; Industrialist, 82,” 26 July 1941.

—“Mrs. Thomas Plant,” 5 June 1947.

Nickerson, Albert. Letters, in U.S. War Department, U.S. Army, Pension File: Antoine Plant, 20 May & 30 May 1863.

Nighswander, Arthur. Laconia, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Sacramento, California, 30 June 1987.

Nisbet, Harry. Footprints on the Road: 21 Years a Travelling Shoe Salesman.

New York: Harry Nisbet, circa 1910.

Nutt, Charles. History of Worcester & its People, Volume III. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1919.

Oestreicher, Richard. “Socialism & the Knights of Labor in Detroit, 1877– 1886.” Labor History, Winter 1981: 5–30.

O’Gorman, Sr. Gaynor. History of USMC. Unpublished manuscript, circa 1965. Held by Emhart, Inc., Wilmington, Massachusetts.

267

A Castle in the Clouds:

Oliver, Martha. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 21 July 1993.

Oliver, Wilbur C. Poster against J. Edward Drake’s political campaign.

Bath: Wilbur C. Oliver, at the Richmond Police Department, circa 1926.

Olmsted Records, Correspondence, Thomas G. Plant Company, Roxbury, Massachusetts (1909–1910), File Unit 3792, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Orem, Preston. Baseball (1845–1881): From the Newspaper Accounts.

Altadena: Preston Orem, 1961.

Owen, Henry. The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath, Maine, Volume I. Bath: The Times Company, 1936.

—Bath Genealogy in Two Volumes, undated. Held by the Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine.

Palmer, Bryan. Working Class Experience: The Rise & Reconstitution of Canadian Labour, 1800–1980. Toronto: Butterworth & Company, 1983.

Palmer, Nanlee. Laguna Hills, California, Letter to Patricia Gray, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 24 March 1980.

Palmer, Robert. Palmer’s Views of New York – Past & Present. New York: Robert Palmer, 1909.

Parr, Joy. The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men, & Change in Two Industrial Towns, 1880–1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

Perrin, Virginia. Toulon, Illinois, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 20 March 1990.

Perry, George. Penacook, New Hampshire. Letter to Superintendent, Castle in the Clouds, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 27 August 1965. Held by Wayne Wakefield, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

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Persons, Stow. Ethnic Studies at Chicago, 1905–45. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Pinkham, Thatcher. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 14 July 1993.

Plant, Anthony. United States, Department of Justice, Immigration & Naturalization Service, Index card, Naturalization of Antonio Plant, Certificate 18-168. At Sagadahoc County Court, Bath, Maine, 5 September 1882.

—Department of War, Army, First Maine Light Artillery, Muster Roll, Antoine Plant. At U.S. National Archives, Washington, D.C., 1861– 1865.

—Seventh Maine Volunteer Infantry, Company E, Antoine Plant, Abstract, Regimental Muster roll. At U.S. National Archives, Washington, D.C., 1861–1865.

—Antoine Plant, Pension File SC 23-020. At U.S. National Archives, Washington, D.C., 20 May 1863–1899.

Plant, Kenneth. Blaine, Minnesota, e-letter to Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 23 December 2013.

—PlantFamily.Com, 7 December 2013 URL: (www.plantfamily.com/homepage.html).

Plant, Thomas. Lucknow: A Mountain & Lake Estate. Moultonborough, New Hampshire: by Thomas Plant, circa 1924. Held by John & Kip Scott at the Bald Peak Colony Club, Melvin Village, New Hampshire.

—Boston, Letter to Mary Campbell, Secretary, T.G. Plant Company, 27 December 1910. Held by Robert Lamprey, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

—New York City, Letter to Walter Glidden, Bath, Maine, 6 January 1917; Palm Beach, Florida, 27 February 1917; Boston, Massachusetts,

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6 December 1917; Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 22 June 1918; 13 September 1935; 16 September 1935; 21 September 1935. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—Moultonborough, New Hampshire, Letter to Jim (Lincoln), Bath, Maine, 24 November 1917. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—Letter to Billy (Manson), Bath, Maine, 7 September 1931. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—Moultonborough, New Hampshire, Letter to Samuel Percy, Bath, Maine, 20 September 1937. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

—“Excerpt from Testimony of Mr. Plant at page 67, in Smith v. Plant,” 1–2. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, Mss. 641, C.734/C.1, F. Royalty Case. Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

—Obituary, T.G. Plant, Unattributed/undated. Held by the Moultonborough Public Library, Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Porter, Glenn; Harold Livesay. Merchants & Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1971.

Poteet, Maurice. Textes de L’Exode. Montréal: Guérin littérature, 1987.

Pronovost, Gilles; Pierre Girard, “Temps Industriel & Temps Libre à Trois-Rivieres: Une Étude de Cas.” Revue d’histoire de l’amérique française, (Autumn 1987): 205–232.

Provost, Honorius. Chaudière-Kennebec: grand chemin séculaire. Québec: Éditions Garneau, 1974.

Pucin, Terri. Marketing Research Department, Florsheim Shoe Company,

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Chicago, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 15 December 1988.

Pursell, Carroll, Jr. Technology in America: A History of Individuals & Ideas.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990.

Ratcliffe, William. Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Charles Jones, Boston, Massachusetts, 2 August 1909. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Reed, Parker. History of Bath & Environs, Sagadahoc County, Maine, 1607– 1894. Portland: Parker Reed, 1894.

Reich, Kathleen. Winter Park, Florida, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 10 October 1991.

R.G. Dun & Company. R.G. Dun & Company Collection, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Rider, Fremont. A Guide Book for Travellers. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1923.

Riley, Oscar. “Some Lights & Shadows,” The Rand-McNally Bankers’ Monthly 31 (7), July 1914: 49–51.

Robbins, Jay. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Richmond, Maine, 28 April 1991.

Roberts, Kenneth. March to Quebec; Journals of the Members of Arnold’s Expedition. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1938.

Robie, Richard. Interview with Barry Rodrigue and Wayne Lovington, Boston, Massachusetts, 15 September 1988.

Roby, Yves. Les Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, 1776–1930.

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A Castle in the Clouds:

Sillery: Septentrion, 1990.

Roderick, Meserve; Isaiah Clair. Testimony of August 1866, in the file of George Derusha (error). U.S. Department of War, Pension Office, 1866– 1898.

Roderick, Gladys Hadfield. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Manchester, Maine, 25 October 1990.

Roderick, Richard. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Gardiner, Maine, 10 October 1991.

Roderick, Thomas. Bar Harbor, Maine, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 13 April 1988.

Rodrigue, Louis-Philippe. Aylmer, Québec. Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 28 July 1988, 6 September & 21 October 1988.

Rodrick, Francis. Burial stone (1795–1878). Fairfield cemetery, Fairfield, Maine.

Rodrick, Meserve. Burial Stone (1835–1914). St. Mary’s cemetery, Augusta, Maine.

Rodrigue, Barry. Thomas G. Plant: The Making of a Franco-American Industrialist, 1859–1941. M.A. thesis, University of Maine, 1992.

—Tom Plant: The Making of a Franco-American Entrepreneur, 1859– 1941. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994.

—“The Cultural Trigonometry of Franco-American Stereotypes,” pages 40–57, Maine History, Portland: Maine Historical Society, 1994.

—“The Canada Road Frontier: From Mythical Reportage to Analytical Reconstruction,” pp. 59–69, Histoire Mythique et Paysage Symbolique: People in Time & Place, Ste. Foy/Kingston: Les Presses de l’Université Laval/Queens University Press, 1997.

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—“Tom Plant, la route du Canada et les stéréotypes sur les FrancoAméricains,” pp. 113–139, Vision et visages de la Franco-Amérique, Sillery: Septentrion, 2001, Dean Louder, Jean Morisset, Eric Waddell (editors).

—“An Album in the Attic: The Forgotten Frontier of the QuebecMaine Borderlands during the Revolutionary War,” in The Journal of The Historical Society 3 (1), 2003, pages 45–73, and in Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader, Nelson Madore & Barry Rodrigue (editors), Gardiner: Tilbury House Publishing, 2007, pages *.

—“Francophones…pas toujours, mais francos toujours!” FrancoAmérique, Dean Louder, Eric Waddell (editors). Québec: Septentrion, 2008, pp. 113–136.

— Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Historic Sites Inventory: Maison Plante-Rodrigue, ME 031-015.

Rodrigue, Barry; Michel Boisvert, “Migrations par la route ChaudièreKennebec, 1810–1860,” pp. 134–35, Atlas historique du Québec: Population & territoire, Ste. Foy: Laval University Press, 1996.

Roe & Colby. Map of the City of Bath, Sagadahoc Co., Maine. Philadelphia: Roe & Colby, 1873. Archives, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine.

Roman Catholic Church, Diocese of Portland. All Saints Parish, “St. Mary Church History,” 31 January 2014. URL: (http://www.allsaintsmaine.com/ st-mary-history/).

—St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Records, St. Mary’s Church, Bath, Maine, 1856–1900: Baptisms, 1/18/1856–10/30/60 and Confirmations, 1879.

Rumilly, Robert. Histoire des Franco-Americains. Montréal: Robert Rumilly, 1958.

Sagadahoc Preservation, Bath Field Survey Data Sheet, Bath, Maine, 1970– 1985.

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St. Louis Stock Exchange. The Story of The International Shoe Company. St. Louis: Public Relations Committee of the St. Louis Stock Exchange, 1940.

Held by the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.

Sampson, Davenport & Company. The Lynn Directory 1883–4. Boston: Sampson, Davenport & Company, 1883.

—The Lynn Directory. Boston: Sampson, Davenport & Company, 1885.

Sampson, Murdock & Company. Boston City Directory, 1894–1918. Boston: Sampson, Murdoch & Company, 1886.

—The Lynn Directory, 1886–96. Boston: Sampson, Murdoch & Company.

—Lynn Business Directory, 1888. Boston: Sampson, Murdoch & Company.

—The Manchester Directory, 1917, 1918, 1923–27. Boston: Sampson, Murdoch & Company.

—The Newton Directory, 1919–21, 1931–32. Boston: Sampson, Murdoch & Company, Sandy, Brian. “Report on Thomas Plant: Astrological Chart Analysis,” Unpublished, Spring 1990. In file of Sharon Theberge.

Santa Ana Public Library. Santa Ana, California, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Boston, Massachusetts, 20 April 1989.

S.C. Jones & Company. The Bath, Brunswick & Richmond Directory for 1871-72. Boston: S.C. Jones, 1870.

Scott, Kip. Venice, Florida, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 5 March 1993.

Scott, Kip & John. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Melvin Village, New Hampshire, 5 June 1993.

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Segal, Howard. “The Machine Shop in American Society & Culture,” Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village Herald (1985): 44–49.

Selz, E.F. Chicago, Illinois. Letter to Louis Brandeis, Boston, Massachusetts, 2 June 1911. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Seymour, Edward. “A Man & his Mountains.” The New Country Life, February 1917: 45–49.

Shaw, William. Directory of Bath & Surrounding Towns for 1897. Boston: William E. Shaw, 1897.

Shephard, Diane. Librarian/Archivist, Lynn Historical Society & Museum, Letters to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 11 March 1991; 6 August 1993.

Shore, Marlene. The Science of Social Redemption: McGill, the Chicago School, & the Origins of Social Research in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

Small, Donald. Secretary, Old Folks Home, Bath, Maine, to Olive Plant, Toulon, Illinois, 19 March 1948. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home, Bath, Maine.

Smith, Abijah. Letter to the Governor of Maine, 20 December 1832. Maine State Executive Council Reports: MSA 1/2, 1833, Chap 11, Box 39. Maine State Archives, Augusta.

Smithsonian Institution. Draft Description of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation Records in their collection. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., July 1991.

Snow, Frederic. Boston, Massachusetts. Letter to Thomas Plant, Roxbury, Massachusetts, 10 June 1910. In the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard

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University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Sobel, Robert; John Raimo. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789–1978, Volume II. Westport: Meckler Books, 1978.

Stanley Manufacturing Company, Journal Nº 11. Stanley Manufacturing Company Collection, Mss. 52, 1888–1919, Nº 520, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Starr, Kevin. Americans & the California Dream, 1850–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Stokes, Phelps. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909. New York: Robert Dodd, 1915.

Struble, Gordon. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Bath, Maine, 12 March 1991.

Superintendent & Foreman, “The Thomas G. Plant Company,” 11 January 1911.

Theberge, Sharon Cormier. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Bedford, New Hampshire, Spring 1992. The file of data contains correspondence and other materials.

—Therapist, Bedford, New Hampshire, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, Summer 1992.

“T.G. Plant’s Fence Cuts Off the View.” Unattributed newspaper article in the Moultonborough, Public Library, New Hampshire, circa 1911.

Thomas G. Plant, “The Pacific Coast Longshoremen’s Strike of 1934.” San Francisco: Waterfront Employers Union of San Francisco, 1934. Note: This is not by the subject of this biography.

Thomas G. Plant Company. The Famous Queen Quality Shoe For Women.

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Boston: Fall/Winter 1900–1901. Held by the James Duncan Phillips Library, Peabody & Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

—Dorothy Dodd Shoe Company. Service Book. Boston: Spring/ Summer 1903. Held by the Essex County Advertising Collection/ Clothes, Hats, Shoes, Folder XI, James Duncan Phillips Library, Peabody & Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

—Queen Quality shoe advertisements. Colburn Shoe Store, Belfast, Maine.

—Dorothy Dodd shoe advertisement. Essex Institute: Salem, Massachusetts.

—“The Real Reason Why Is Told Inside!” Unattributed/undated. Trade Catalogue Collection, Non-Essex County Advertising/Clothing, Box B, F. 3, James Duncan Phillips Library, Peabody & Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

—A Call From Cleo. Boston, 1905. Boot & shoe trade catalogue collection, New York Public Library, New York.

—Service Book, Boston, Autumn/Winter 1905–1906. Boot & shoe trade catalogue collection, New York Public Library, New York.

—Draft notes possibly about the Massachusetts Supreme Court case of Smith v. Plant, 2 June 1913. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, Mss. 641, C.734/F.Legal Documents. Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University Boston, Massachusetts.

—Pricing list, Unattributed/undated, circa 1911. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company, Mss. 641, C.1/F. National Boot & Shoe Manufacturers Association, 1911. Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home. Old Folks Home. Record of First

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Meeting under Charter, Bath, Maine, 30 July 1917. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home.

—Old Folks Home, Minutes of the Trustees Meetings, 1917–1941.

Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home.

—Plaque at entranceway. Held by the T.G. Plant Memorial Home.

Thompson, Fred. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1985.

Thomson, Ross. The Path to Mechanized Shoe Production in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Tobin, John. Letter to E.M. Bannister, 29 July 1896. Records of the Boot & Shoe Workers Union, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

Toner, Peter. “Introduction.” Passengers to New Brunswick: The Custom House Records – 1833, 1834, 1837, & 1838, pages i-iii. Saint John: New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Saint John Branch, 1987.

United Shoe Machinery Company, “To the Lessees of the United Shoe Machinery Company,” circa 1910. Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, Mss. 641, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

United States of America.

—Commerce Department, Census Bureau. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 2 Volumes. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975.

—Fourth Decennial Census, 1830: Maine – Augusta.

—Fifth Decennial Census, 1840: Maine – Augusta.

—Sixth Decennial Census, 1850: Maine – Bath, Fairfield.

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—Seventh Decennial Census, 1860: Maine – Bath.

—Eighth Decennial Census, 1870: Maine – Bath.

—Ninth Decennial Census, 1880: Maine – Bath.

—Tenth Decennial Census, 1900: Massachusetts & Massachusetts, Soundex.

—Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1859–1941.

—Department of Justice.

—Circuit Court, Massachusetts, Nº 1113, United Shoe Machinery Company v. T.G. Plant Company, in The Federal Reporter.

—Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, T.G. Plant v. May Company, Nº 832, 105 F 375, 44 CCA 434, 4 December 1900.

—District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Thomas G. Plant v. May Mercantile, Nº 5996, 100 F 72 (CC Ohio 1900), 73.

—Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division, Thomas G. Plant v. May Mercantile Company, Nº 5196, 4 February 1907, in 153 Federal Reporter, 229–231.

—Thomas G. Plant v. Hamburger & others, Nº 5197, 4 February 1907, in 153 Federal Reporter, 232.

—United States of America v. United Shoe Machinery Company & others.

—District Court, U.S. v. United Shoe Machine Company, 227 F 507, D.C. MO, 8 November 1915.

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—District of Massachusetts. U.S. v. United Shoe Machine Company of New Jersey & others. Nº 301 (Decision: 1915).

Urofsky, Melvin. Louis D. Brandeis: A Life. New York: Pantheon, 2009.

Van Ness, Carl. University of Florida, Gainesville, Letter to Barry Rodrigue, Belfast, Maine, 13 October 1991.

Van Tassel Jr., Edward. Cohasset, Massachusetts, Letter to Clerk, Carroll County, Superior Court, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, 15 September 1947.

Vicero, Ralph. Immigration of French Canadians to New England, 1840– 1900: A Geographical Analysis. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1968.

—“French-Canadian Settlement in Vermont Prior to the Civil War,” The Professional Geographer (October 1971): 290–294.

Violette, Maurice. The Franco-Americans: A Franco-American Chronicle of Historical & Cultural Environment: Augusta Revisited. New York: Vantage Press, 1976.

Voigt, David. American Baseball: From Gentleman’s Sport to the Commissioner System, Volume I. Norman: University of Oaklahoma Press, 1966.

Von Hoffman, Alexander. Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850–1920 (draft version from the author). It was published in Baltimore by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1994.

—Interview, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 25 May 1993.

Wakefield, Richard. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 21 July 1993.

Wakefield, Wayne. Interview with Barry Rodrigue, Moultonborough, New Hampshire, 21 July 1993.

Walkowitz, Daniel. Worker City, Company Town: Iron & Cotton-Worker

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Protest in Troy & Cohoes, New York, 1855–84. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.

Walling, Henry. Map of the Compact Part of the City of Bath, Lincoln County, Maine. Unattributed location: A.G. Gillet, 1851. Archives, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine.

Weil, François. Les Franco-Américains: 1860–1980. Paris: Belin, 1989.

Wellesley College. The Record; Class of 1905. Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Volume 2, 1910–1915, 31; Volume 3, 1915–1920, 36–38; Volume 9, 1949– 1955, 23.

Welliver, Judson. “Sydney W. Winslow, Czar of Footwear.” Hampton’s Magazine 25 (3), New York, September 1910: 326–339.

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Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company Collection, 1884–1931, Mss. 641, C.1, F. Royalty Cases, Historical Collections, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

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Authors Biography Barry Rodrigue began his work in Alaska as an ethnographer, commercial fisherman, field biologist, and journalist. In the course of his twenty years in the North Pacific, he founded the regional journal, Archipelago, and collected songs, stories and music for Folkways Records (available through the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Sound series). A Fulbright scholar, he completed an M.A. in history and folklore at the University of Maine (1992), a Ph.D. in geography at Laval University in Québec (1999), and a Ph.D. in history and historical archeology at the University of Maine (2000).

Barry uses these different fields as a single set of tools to help understand humanity’s place in the world. Active in the new field of Big History, he serves as International Coordinator of the International Big History Association and is a member of the Eurasian Center for Big History & Systems Forecasting (Russian Academy of Sciences). A professor of global studies at the University of Southern Maine in Lewiston, he also works as a visiting scholar, most recently in the People’s Republic of China. He lives on the coast of Maine with his wife, Penelope, and his sons Kenai and Dimitri. He, and his two dogs, Yukon and Sakura, especially enjoy walks in the forest.

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For orders and inquiries archipelago.com tomplant@gmail.com Telephone/mail inquiries at The Game Loft 78A Main Street Belfast, Maine 04915 207-338-6447 Archipelago collaborates with Maine Youth Alliance dba The Game Loft for order fulfillment. The Game Loft is a youth development program in Belfast, Maine dedicated to promoting Positive Youth Development through non-electronic games and community involvement.

10% of book sales goes to the support of this award winning youth program.

For more information see TheGameLoft.com

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Index Accidents (injuries): 35–36, 48 (10), 53 (36), 60, 79, 81, 91 (12, 13), 100 (56), 166 (13), 212 (22).

Bald Peak Country Club: 193–197, 199, 201, 204, 207, 210 (13), 216 (43, 44), 217 (47, 49–52), 219 (58), 221 (74), 222 (79), 223 (88), 227.

Baseball: 37, 42, 43, 48 (14), 49 (15), 51 (28), 52 (30, 32), 74, 78, 86, 87, 102 (69), 208.

Bath, Maine: 11, 18–23, 25 (18), 27 (38), 28 (40–42), 30–33, 35–38, 40, 41, 42, 45–51, 58, 59, 88, 90 (7), 156, 169 (27), 186–192, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 212 (28) – 215 (41), 220 (69–74), 221 (77), 222 (82), 227, 228.

Beauce, Québec: 7–9, 13–15, 21–22, 22 (2), 26 (36), 221 (75).

Boston, Massachusetts: 1, 11, 24 (9), 40, 57, 59, 60, 62–145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 154, 155, 160, 161, 167 (17), 166 (12–14), 169 (25), 170 (32), 171 (34), 172 (47), 175, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185, 187, 190, 193, 196, 201, 209 (10, 13), 211 (17), 212 (28), 217 (50), 227, 234.

Jamaica Plain: 62, 63, 64, 71, 74, 93 (21), 143 (60), 183, 228, 240.

Roxbury, West Roxbury: 62, 63, 70, 93 (21), 99 (53), 240.

Brandeis, Louis: 115, 125, 136 (23), 140 (47), 145 (63).

Bresnahan, Maurice: 91 (13), 112–113, 135 (18), 139 (45), 142 (58).

Brunet, Michel: ix, xxv (11), 130–131.

California: 41, 50 (25), 56, 180, 198, 203, 206–207, 218 (56), 223 (85), 229 (5).

Canada: xvii–xxv, 1–29, 36, 45, 51 (28, 29), 66, 97 (43), 98 (49), 130, 131, 164, 173 (48), 190, 207.

Canada Road: 9–15, 21–22, 24 (13, 16, 17).

Caron, Ernest: ix, xxv (11), 130, 131, 145 (69).

Chicago, Illinois: 2, 6 (4), 58–59, 71, 90 (8), 91 (9), 97 (44), 99 (52), 106 (89), 118–119, 124–127, 129, 141 (54), 142 (59), 144 (63), 147, 168 (20).

Chicago School of Sociology: 2–3, 6 (4).

Cooperative ventures: 43–44, 46, 52 (32, 34), 87–88, 226.

Côté, Louis: xxv (11), 130.

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A Castle in the Clouds: Dewey (Plant), Olive: 153, 155–157, 160, 162, 168 (20), 170 (30), 175, 178–179, 181–183, 199, 204, 205, 206, 209 (10, 13), 216 (50), 219 (65), 221 (77), 222 (80, 84), 223 (85), 239, 240.

Emery, Frederick: 83, 84, 113, 115, 136 (22), 187, 197, 204, 212 (28), 216 (45, 50).

Emery, Joseph: 201, 203, 205, 206, 219 (68), 220 (74), 222 (82, 84).

Endicott, Henry: 102 (69), 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 137 (32, 34), 139 (41).

Ethnicity (stereotypes): xvii–xxiv, 1–6, 14, 20, 22–23, 26 (33), 31–32, 38, 41–42, 45, 47 (5, 7, 9), 55, 63, 80, 88–89, 104 (82), 130–132, 163, 164, 172 (46), 192, 196, 206–207, 225, 228, 229 (2), 236.

Europe: xix, xx, 18, 23 (1, 2), 28 (42), 33, 59, 61, 73, 84–85, 90 (9), 104 (80), 112, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 164, 169 (25), 168 (20), 179, 180, 182.

France: 1, 7, 18, 23 (1, 2), 28 (42), 73, 133 (7), 153, 154, 160, 164, 173, 207, 211, 217 (55), 226, 235.

French Canadians (Franco-Americans): xvii–xxv, 1–6, 7–29, 31–33, 36, 37, 38, 41–42, 45, 47 (5, 8), 48 (14), 49 (16), 50 (24), 51 (28), 59, 80, 87, 88, 89, 91 (15), 130–132, 163, 172 (46), 173 (48), 207, 213 (29), 216 (50), 217 (55), 225–230, 232– 233, 236.

Gaston, William: 75, 88, 99 (53), 115, 134 (17), 136 (22), 148, 223 (86).

Goddu, Louis: ix, xxv (11), 130.

Golf: 73, 98 (48), 104 (81), 175, 179, 180, 181, 192–197, 199, 200, 209 (13), 216 (50), 219 (68), 223 (84).

Griggs, Caroline: xvii, 58–59, 63, 73, 84–86, 90 (8, 9), 92 (19), 123, 147, 153, 164 (2), 168 (20), 222 (84).

Grover, Alfred: 74, 98 (49), 100 (56), 101 (61), 151, 152, 184–185, 198, 212 (24), 217 (56), 229 (2).

Horses: xxiv, 5, 24 (13), 48 (14), 50 (19), 53 (38), 57, 75, 79, 86, 87, 90 (7), 98 (49), 105 (87, 89), 104 (80), 123, 152, 154, 155, 166 (16), 174, 175, 177, 180, 193, 194, 200, 206, 210 (14), 227.

Investments: 43, 44, 46, 52 (30, 32), 63, 71, 79, 92 (19), 96 (35), 100 (59), 102 (65), 106 (89), 118, 125, 133 (7, 8), 140 (48), 152, 164 (4), 172 (47), 182–185, 190, 193, 196, 197–198, 201, 202, 207–208, 212 (23), 220 (69, 74), 223 (84), 226.

Jones, Charles: 99 (52), 117–118, 122, 123, 131, 137 (33), 145 (69).

Jongers, Alphonse: i, 160–161, 171 (36), 206.

Lucknow: xvii, 154–164, 166–173, 175–181, 197, 199–224, 240.

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Tom Plant and the American Dream Labor unions: 5, 41, 43, 50 (23), 60–62, 63, 67, 69–71, 80, 89 (2), 92 (16–19), 96 (35), 97 (42), 120–121, 137 (33), 138 (40), 172 (46), 227, 231–238.

Boot & Shoe Workers Union (American Federation of Labor): xxiii, 61–62, 67, 69–71, 92 (16–19), 96 (33), 97 (43).

Edge-Setters Union № 229: 70.

Knights of Labor: 40, 43, 62, 67.

Lasters Protective Union (Lynn Laster’s Union № 32): 40, 51 (26), 52 (31), 59, 61–62, 67, 92 (19).

Lynn Joint Council № 4: 61–62, 92 (17).

Union № 80: 67, 96 (33).

United Shoe Workers of America: 138 (40).

McElwain, William: 117, 118.

New France: 7, 10, 23 (1, 2).

New York City, New York: xix, 53 (36), 61, 98 (52), 124, 125, 140 (49), 144 (63), 147, 151, 154, 160, 161, 168 (20), 170 (30, 32), 171 (36), 179, 187, 194, 199, 209 (12), 210 (15), 219 (68).

Old Folks Home (Thomas G. Plant Memorial Home): 186–192, 201–203, 204, 206, 212 (28)–215 (41), 220 (69–74), 221 (74, 77), 224 (89), 227.

Moultonborough, New Hampshire: 150–164, 165 (11), 173, 174–181, 192–230.

Ouimet, Francis: 195, 216 (50).

Plant(e), Antoine: xvii, 7, 13, 19, 21, 25 (18), 28 (42), 29 (43), 31, 33, 37, 42, 47 (9), 48 (10, 13), 49 (17), 51 (28), 58, 59, 99 (11).

Plant (Rodrigue), Sophie: 7, 9, 21, 26 (33), 28 (42), 32, 46 (3), 49 (17), 57, 58, 59, 90 (7), 91 (11), 186.

Plant, William: 36, 41, 44, 48 (12), 51 (25), 53 (38), 57, 64, 84, 85, 90 (4, 6), 91 (11), 94 (23), 97 (44), 104 (82, 84), 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 164 (4), 166 (17), 182–183, 184, 186, 198, 204, 211 (22), 212 (23, 25), 217 (50, 56), 230 (6).

Ratcliffe, William: 73–74, 90 (4), 97 (44), 98 (48), 104 (84), 142 (58).

Roosevelt, Theodore: 149, 165 (8), 182, 210 (17), 235.

Russian bonds: 182, 197, 200, 210 (17), 217 (55), 222 (84).

Saint Louis, Missouri: xix, 71, 95 (29), 97 (44), 118, 125, 141 (54), 143, (59), 144 (63).

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A Castle in the Clouds: Shoe Manufacturers: Clark-Hutchinson Company: 65, 94 (26), 97 (36).

Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company: 117, 137 (33).

Endicott-Johnson Shoes: 102 (69), 118, 137 (33).

Keene Brothers Company: 40, 42, 57.

Lynn Union Co-operative Shoe Company: 43–44, 53 (37).

Plant Brothers & Company: 184–185, 198, 212 (23, 25, 26), 217 (56).

Thomas G. Plant Company: 55–57, 60–83, 87–145, 149, 151, 166 (13, 16), 183, 184, 234.

Dorothy Dodd Shoes: 71–73, 74, 98 (45), 142 (58), 143 (59).

Queen Quality Shoes: xii, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 94 (26, 27), 95 (29), 97 (36), 120, 142 (58), 143 (59).

Tom McAn Shoes: 117–118.

Williams, Plant & Company: 44–45, 53 (38).

Smith, Harry: 123–124, 129, 140 (48, 49), 141 (52), 147, 153.

Sugar: 182–183, 197–198.

United Shoe Machinery Company: 1, 107–145, 147, 148–149, 165 (4, 5), 207, 212 (23), 213 (31), 226, 239–241.

Welfare capitalism (paternalism): xvii, xxiii, 71, 77–83, 103 (73), 137 (33), 149, 180, 207, 231–237.

Whipple, Sherman: 104 (80), 108, 115, 125, 136 (22), 148, 165 (6), 223 (86).

Winslow, Sidney: 57, 110, 121, 122, 123, 124–127, 130, 139 (41), 142 (56, 57, 59), 144 (62), 145 (64), 165 (5).

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