Tag: Industry

The Enduring Grip of Stillson’s Pipe Wrench (episode 306)

Long before becoming a haven for software and biotech giants, Kendall Square was a center for manufacturing during the era of steam. Here, in the 1860s, two crucial advancements emerged: the standardization of threaded iron pipes and fittings for use in household plumbing, gas fixtures, and steam power and the invention of the modern pipe wrench that allows us to work on them. This episode explores the story behind the Stillson pipe wrench, a tool so revolutionary that its inventor’s name became synonymous with pipe wrenches and so innovative that its design remains nearly unchanged over 150 years later. We’ll meet Daniel Chapman Stillson, the Civil War veteran and ingenious machinist who, frustrated by the limitations of existing tools, designed an adjustable pipe wrench that revolutionized plumbing, pipefitting, and his employer, the Walworth company.


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Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, with Aaron Stark (episode 284)

This week, Aaron Stark joins the show to discuss his new book Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, which chronicles an attempt by a foreign power to infiltrate, emulate, and eventually annihilate a great American company.  In the late 19th century, watches were at the forefront of technological innovation, and the Waltham Watch Company made some of the finest watches in the world.  Unlike their Swiss competitors, whose products were fancy, handcrafted works of art, the Watham company specialized in mass produced, affordable, and reliable watches for the masses.  At an 1876 World’s Fair, they announced their arrival on the world’s stage, and the world took notice.  The Swiss, in particular, took notice, and they took it by sending spies to steal the secrets of Waltham’s success.


Continue reading Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, with Aaron Stark (episode 284)

All the Bells and Whistles (episode 214)

The first commercially viable telephone network was created by a Boston inventor and entrepreneur.  Not Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the telephone, but Edwin Thomas Holmes.  Starting in the 1850s, his father Edwin Holmes created the first burglar alarm company here in Boston, then Edwin Thomas Holmes adapted the alarm company’s network of telegraph wires in the 1870s to work with the telephone switchboard he invented.  Working with Alexander Graham Bell, the Holmes company turned his invention into a business and helped him build the Bell Telephone Company.


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Joseph Chapman, from Boston to L.A. (episode 206)

Your humble host really misses travel, so this week’s episode is inspired by travel, both historic travel and my own. In the early 19th century,  a Boston shipwright’s apprentice went to sea with a whaling voyage, and ended up being recruited into a crew that was assembled in the Hawaiian Islands, then captured by Spanish authorities on the California coast and accused of piracy.  Escaping the gallows through hard work and Yankee ingenuity, Joseph Chapman would build a New England style mill for the San Gabriel mission, the first of its kind in Alta California.  He would live through tumultuous times, witnessing the independence of Mexico, the downfall of the mission system he had become part of, and eventually the American annexation of California.

(Don’t forget to vote for us for the “fan favorite” award!)


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When the US Army Invaded South Boston (episode 198)

In the 1940s, Boston was still an industrial city, and when the US entered World War II, that industrial might would be turned to wartime production. With industry comes labor disputes, and a new government agency was given extraordinary powers to resolve them. In other early cases, the National War Labor Board used its authority and the might of the military to break strikes by organized labor. However, in August 1942, they would step in to force an employer to honor their union contract, using the US Army to enforce workers’ rights. That employer was the SA Woods Machine Company of South Boston, and this Wednesday marks the anniversary of the military takeover of their plant, setting up an epic battle of wills between the SA Woods corporation and the US government, and between the company’s cantankerous president and the young major sent to take over his company.


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Ghosts and Shadows of Automobile Row, with Ken Liss (episode 180)

In the early 20th century, car dealerships, tire companies, parts distributors, and other related businesses lined a section of Commonwealth Avenue in Allston that was known as Automobile Row, a sort of urban forefather of the suburban Auto Mile today.  Local historian Ken Liss joins the show to tell us what made these early dealerships special, who some of the personalities behind Automobile Row were, and where you can see traces of this history today. 


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Harnessing the Power of Boston’s Tides (episode 130)

This week, we interview Earl Taylor, president of the Dorchester Historical Society and one of the founders of the Tide Mill Institute.  He tells us how early Bostonians harnessed the power of the tides in Boston Harbor to grind their grain, manufacture products like snuff and spices, and even produce baby carriages.  Plus, he shows us the advantages tidal power had over other types of mills, how tide mills shaped the landscape of Boston, and why tide mills went out of fashion.


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Weird Neighborhood History (episode 124)

Instead of writing and recording a new episode, your humble hosts are going to History Camp this weekend.  We’ll leave you with two stories about Boston’s weird neighborhood history from our back catalog.  We’ll be sharing a story from Jamaica Plain about a politically motivated crime in the early 20th century that led to a series of running gunfights between the police and what the newspapers called “desperadoes.”  Then, we’re going to move across town to Brighton, which  — speaking of desperadoes — used to be home to saloons, card games, and hard drinking cowboys, when it hosted New England’s largest cattle market.


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Lewis Latimer, Master Inventor (episode 120)

African American inventor and draftsman Lewis Latimer’s parents self-emancipated to give their children the opportunities afforded to those born into freedom. A Chelsea native, Latimer’s career took him from the Navy, to a patent law firm, to the prestigious circle of Thomas Edison’s pioneers.


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Boston’s Wild West (episode 99)

Brighton is one of our westernmost neighborhoods, and it’s often associated with Boston’s large and sometimes unruly student population, but in the mid 19th century, Brighton was home to all the elements of a western movie.  There were cattle drives, stockyards, saloons, and stampedes through the streets.  Before it was tamed, unruly Brighton was our own wild west.


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