Providence Rhode Island is incorporated
Newly incorporated as a city, Providence held the hopes and dreams of a grateful nation.
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November 1832
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New England Butt Company Founded
Nicholas A. Fenner founded with friends Charles Miller and Stillman Perkins as a hardware foundry. Perkins Street in Providence is still named in his honor. The factory will focus on american made cast iron "butt" hinges and hardware.
1842
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Incorporated
New England Butt Company is incorporated. Nicholas A. Fenner, Amos C. Barstow, Apollos Richmond, and Henry P. Knight who served as its first treasurer and agent.
May 1853
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Wanskuck Company is formed in Providence
Wanskuck Company was founded as a woolen mill in 1862 by Stephen T. Olney, Jesse Metcalf, and Henry J. Steere. This mill was primarily used to outfit civil war soldiers. Wanskuck is important in the history of New England Butt Company. Through a series of mergers in the 1950's they will join together and N.E. Butt will operate as a division.
1862
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Factory Building Completed
Main building is built at the corner of Pearl St. and Perkins St. Constructed by Spencer P. Read. 131 feet by 38 feet.
1865
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Braiding Machines
Around 1880, New England Butt Company started to focus on rope making machines with "Maypole" braiders. 3 to 73 strand Maypole braiders are offered to help cover, wrap, and shield Electric wires, Telegraph wires, and Telephone wires. The factory was capable of melting 25 tons of iron per day and employed between 175 to 200 workers.
January 1884
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World Columbian Exposition Chicago
New England Butt Company is an exibitor at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair in the Electrical Building.
May 1893
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Telephone installation
A telephone from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is now available to the factory. Phone number is “Providence 1843.” It is connected by Metallic Circuit Lines with the “LONG DISTANCE” System.
1895
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The Introduction of Scientific Managment
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth are hired by New England Butt Company to study through their special motion studies, consult, recomend, and impliment procedures that help workers increase their job satisfaction, increase productivity, and increase output. Some effeciency is measured by attaching small light bulbs to workers hands using long exposure photographs to create light trails which are visible after the print is developed. The first work ergonomic chair is invented, flow charts, along with an installation of a branch of the local library located inside the factory.
1912
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The Wanskuck Merger
In 1955 through a stock trade New England Butt Company bought the Wanskuck company. New England Butt operates as a division of Wanskuck. The Metcalf family sells its interest in Wanskuck to the Chace family.
September 1955
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National Register of Historic Places
Pearl Street Factory building is added to the National Register of Historic Places. -“The longevity of the survival of the New England Butt Company and its affiliated buildings is an increasingly rare phenomenon in the annals of economic and industrial history.”
January 1980
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United States International Trade Commission
Through an international trade court decision "In the Matter of CERTAIN BRAIDING MACHINES" that didn't go the way New England Butt Company had wanted, management started a series of mergers and aquisitions and slowly disolved the company with various historical artifacts donated to local universities and museums including Brown, RISD, The Former American Textile History Museum in Lowell Mass, and Cornell University.
October 1983
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Podcast production of "Butt It's True"
The rediscovered saga continues. A new podcast is in production that follows an amazing true story of the great New England Butt Company. Through a series of expert interviews and historical narratives, this new podcast will involve several stories that will blow your mind, including American Factory history, Business, Governement involvement, the Navy, The American Civil War, World War 2, Law, Art, Activism, the 2020 removal of civial war statues in the south, Summer Homes, Prison Reform, and an unexpected connection of New England Butt Company with the early days of Berkshire Hathaway. We hope that you will be interested in helping us continue the story of "The Butt".
May 2020