Word: disston
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...ancient & honorable firm of Henry Disston & Sons, Inc., No. 1 U. S. saw-makers, jubilantly prepared to celebrate its 100th birthday this week. In its big 65-acre, 66-building plant on the banks of the Delaware River in the Philadelphia suburb of Tacony, 2,000 penknives had been grinding-mementos-to-be for the company's employes. Ready for presentation to employees who had served the firm from 20 to 70 years apiece were 539 special service pins. It was to be a wonderful three-day holiday with games, entertainment, concerts, etc. for Disston workers, their families, friends...
...first time in 54 years the benevolent firm of Disston had a serious strike on its hands. It began when the dominant A. F. of L. union of United Saw, File & Steel Products Workers called a walkout- ostensibly for a union shop and a 10% pay rise, really to bring recalcitrant members of the C. I. O. Steel Workers Organizing Committee union (recently defeated in an NLRB election at the plant) into line. Glum at having their party called off, Disston workers trod their picket line without bitterness. Said one laconic oldtimer: "Well, they wanted a closed shop-and they...
Most U. S. saws came from England when Toolmaker Henry Disston, 21, went into business for himself 100 years ago. Founder Disston soon changed that. First U. S. sawmaker to standardize his product, give it a trade name and produce it in quantity, he ran away from the field in 1855 by pouring from his own furnace the first crucible saw steel ever cast in the U. S. From pictures of old Roman and Egyptian saws he designed, in 1874, the first skew-backed (curved) carpenter's handsaw, which is still Disston's No. 1 specialty and best...
...Today Disston makes over 5,000,000 saws and blades a year, does some 75% of the U. S. handsaw business. Its saws & blades vary from a tiny jeweler's bandsaw blade (thickness: .005 in.) with 88 teeth to the inch, to a ten-foot spiral, inserted-tooth monster used for lumber and metal cutting (two were ordered last week for Allied munitions plants). Disston knives, files and other tools cut sugar beets, chop gunpowder, smooth bricks, polish playing-card backs, perforate newspapers, slice caramels. Disston saws also go to amateur musicians and into vaudeville at the rate...
Among the City of San Francisco's survivors was Industrialist Horace Disston (Henry Disston & Sons, saw manufacturers), who had told friends he preferred trains to planes "for safety's sake." Eighteen hours later, Pan American's Sikorsky 543 ("Baby Clipper"), out of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, was heading for Rio de Janeiro's naval dock. The bay, Pan Am's usual landing place, was clogged with pleasure craft. But seasoned Pilot A. G. Person confidently swung his ship around for a landing farther out. His twelve passengers, after a smooth and uneventful flight, were fumbling...