Image courtesy of Microsoft Bing Maps, accessed 9/16/2012
This company was organized in 1865 to make brass
clock movements, and later made hoopskirt frames, kerosene parlor lamps and the
first successful kerosene bicycle lamp, exhibited at the World’s Fair in
Chicago, in 1893. An offshoot from clock movements was a spring motor-operated
flyfan, forerunner of the modern electric fan; F. R. Wilmot, superintendent,
designed a crude micrometer, and the company also made incandescent lamp
sockets. Bridgeport Brass Company produced the first copper wire strung between
New York and Boston, made many telephonic improvements, features a ‘hard-drawn
wire,’ various alloys of high tensile strength, and was a pioneer in the
adaptation of the electric furnace to the brass industry.
My father was killed at this Plant in 1944. He was hit in the head by a piece of Round Solid Brass 4″ Dia.
Worked there in the 60s 1967 till around 1973.
I worked for Bridgeport Brass Company in the Detroit, MI district sales office from April 1968 until April 1986…I loved that job!
Repurposing a piece of Plumrite brass pipe c.1928 from abandoned water pipe into pipe clamps. Thanks for the background and images. Reblogging on AmericanToolbox.
I have a 19X23 inch litho watercolor print titled “Brass Making -The Extrusion Machine” (c) 1935, Bridgeport Brass Co. The artist is Balconi and the plates and Lithography by Livermore & Knight Co. The print includes a corresponding, descriptive 5X6 inch written pamphlet. The artistic watercolor shows the “…smoke-darkened walls and rafters …the old-time casters and their helpers are at work.” The old pit-fired furnace days.
My mother (age 86) recounts that my great uncle, Herman Steinkraus, was an owner of Bridgeport Brass ages ago, but I wonder if that is just folklore. Does anyone know if that’s true?
Ms. Geraci,
According to “Labor History Archives in the United States”, published in 1992, Mr. Herman Steinkraus was President of the Bridgeport Brass Company and President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1930 to 1974. The following link with take you to the excerpt from the book. Bridgeport Brass Company Owner History
Thank you kindly for your response. As a child we were always told that “Great Uncle Herman” was the son chosen to be sent to college. He then “gave back” to his siblings by paying for their children to go to college (and he paid for my father’s medical school). How unfortunate to not have ever met him.
Susan Steinkraus Geraci