Endicott Johnson Corporation
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The Endicott Johnson Shoe Company ("E-J") was a prosperous manufacturer of shoes based in New York's Southern Tier, with factories mostly located in the area's Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. An estimated 20,000 people worked in the company's factories by the 1920s, and an even greated number worked there during the war-aided boom years of the mid-1940s when it was producing 52 million pairs of shoes a year. During the early 1950s the work force was still approximately 17,000 to 18,000. Today, EJ Footwear, LLC operates as a unit of Nelsonville, Ohio-based Rocky Shoes & Boots, Inc.
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[edit] History
[edit] Founding
The Endicott Johnson Corporation grew out of the Lester Brothers Boot and Shoe Company which began in Binghamton in 1854. In 1890 the Lester Brothers moved their business west to a nearby rural area which in 1892 was incorporated as the Village of Lestershire and in 1916 became Johnson City. Financial problems in 1890 forced the sale of the company to a creditor and fellow shoemaker, Henry B. Endicott of Massachusetts, who in 1899 made factory foreman George F. Johnson his partner.
[edit] George F. and the Square Deal
The E-J story is dominated by George F. Johnson (1857–1948), or George F as he was popularly called, who rose through the shoe factory ranks to become the half-owner of E-J, and its highest executive until his death in 1948.
George F's reign was dominated by his Square Deal version of welfare capitalism that, like progressive movements of the early twentieth century advocated providing parades and churches and libraries to "uplift" workers. George F's Square Deal consisted of worker benefits even in harsh economic times that were generous and innovative for their time, but also meant to engender worker loyalty and discourage unionizing.
For workers, the Square Deal consisted of a chance to buy E-J built and E-J financed homes, a profit sharing program, health care from factory-funded medical facilities and later (built in 1949) two worker recreational facilities. But the Square Deal was more than an employee benefit program. E-J and the Johnson family also provided or helped to finance two libraries, theaters, a golf course, swimming pools, carousels, parks and food markets, many of which were available to the community without charge. Reminders of the source of that generosity were inescapable. For example:
- Endicott, a planned community incorporated in 1906, was named after Henry B. Endicott who owned the business that became E-J, and Lestershire was renamed Johnson City, New York in honor of George F.
- The entrance to Johnson City on Main Street from Binghamton is marked with a stone arch embossed with Home of the Square Deal. There is a corresponding arch on the other end of Main Street that serves as the entrance to Endicott. E-J workers paid for and erected these arches. Both arches were dedicated on September 6, 1920.
- One of the E-J swimming pools was shaped in the outline of a gigantic shoe sole.
- The Triple Cities contain a number of statues of the Johnson family, including Johnson City's statute of Harry L. Johnson (the youngest brother to George F.), and Binghamton's statute of George F. Johnson in the George F. Johnson Recreation Park, and, also in Recreation Park, the Harry L. Johnson memorial.
- Endicott had En-Joie Park (with E and the J capitalized to invoke E-J)
- Various roads and bridges refer to the Johnsons, including CFJ Boulevard in Johnson City, and the C. Fred Johnson Bridge over the Susquehanna River (part of Expressway Route 201) which was named in honor of Charles F. Johnson (the youngest brother of George F.)
- The word Ideal appeared in many places, and among other things referred to E-J's first (1901) factory in Endicott, Endicott's Ideal Home Library (contributed to Endicott by George F) and Endicott's Ideal Race Track Park Stables (maintained by E-J, according to a period postcard).
The use of repetitions and iterations of "ideal," "En-Joie," and other words (such as "Endwell" used for both a line of E-J shoes, and later in the renaming of the hamlet of Hooper to Endwell, New York) were part of E-J's ongoing public relations campaign to discourage unionizing by convincing workers that E-J's Square Deal was the "ideal" relationship between capital and labor. But the campaign also created a cult of personality about Johnson family which is reflected, as examples:
- in the inscription in the Harry L. Johnson memorial which states "This Fountain Was Given By The School Children In Memory Of Their Friend Harry L. Johnson MCMXXII;" and
- in the inscription accompanying a statute of George F. Johnson which states "Have Faith In The People. George F. Johnson. Erected By An Appreciative Community To The Nobility Of His Character And His Great Benefactions To The People. 1923. Labor Is Honorable."
[edit] Decline and sale
Various members of the Johnson family helmed E-J until outside management was brought in starting in 1957. By then, the company had begun a slow decline. The tanneries closed in 1968. E-J's medical department was not closed until 1969, and the plan to close of the last of its shoe manufacturing plants in the Triple Cities area was not announced until April 1998.
The demise of the E-J was rooted in many economic changes. Its founding principles of valuing labor were threatened by the availability of cheap foreign labor and the rise of global shoemakers such as Nike. According to some sources, C.F. Johnson was a vehement critic of free trade, and believed that it was contrary to his glorification of the American worker. The demise of the company may also be attributable, in part, to bad business decisions, including the continuation of its focus during the 1950s on work shoes when the market for lighter, more stylish shoes was expanding and potentially more profitable.
In 1995 E-J was purchased by US Industries. Inc. and its name was changed to EJ Footwear Corp., and its base of operations changed to Franklin, Tennessee. In 2000, EJ Footwear was bought out by Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd., a subsidiary of Citigroup.
Finally, EJ Footwear on December 6, 2004 agreed to become acquired by Rocky Shoes & Boots. EJ had previously been the sole licensee for Rocky's "Dickies" line of work footwear. According to its 2005 annual report, Rocky's sales more than doubled over 2004, largely reflecting this acquisition.
[edit] Present day
At present, the former central headquarters, located on the eastern edge of Johnson City, has been converted into a church. Most of the company's factories have been torn down, and the remaining ones are vacant except for some occupied, in part, by area businesses. EJ Footwear, LLC persists as a subsidiary of Rocky, but all its manufacturing is outsourced by third parties.
[edit] Contribution to economy
The company was responsible for nearly all of the shoe and footwear for the United States Army during World War I and World War II.
At its peak, E-J was one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the U.S., with retail outlets in over 30 states. E-J was also substantially vertically integrated, with coal-fired steam generating plants to power factory machinery, and factories for tanning animal hides to make leather and for reclaiming rubber from used automobile tires for use as shoe soles.
[edit] Carousels
Perhaps the most lasting legacy of E-J is the six carousels donated to the Triple Cities between 1919 and 1934. All were built by the well-known carousel maker Allan Herschell (of The Herschell Carrousel Factory in North Tonawanda, New York), all contain wood-carved figures (part of the only 170 such carousels in the United States), and all are still working during the summer months subject to weather and restoration projects. The admission price has never changed: free (except, traditionally, to find and dispose of one piece of litter).
[edit] External links
- [1] - photographs of E-J factories.
- History of EJ - reliable information from State University of New York at Albany
- Real American Heroes - a somewhat glorified version of the company's history. Site also sells a documentary video available for mail-order.
- [2] - pictures of Carousels of the Triple Cities.
- [3] - information about the history of Binghamton's Recreation Park, including photographs of its statuary.
[edit] For further reading
- "Endicott Johnson closing last plant," The Buffalo News (April 22, 1998, Business Section page 1E).
- Gerald Zhavi, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism, sub-titled: The Shoeworkers and Tanners of Endicott Johnson, 1890–1950 (Copyright 1988, ISBN 0-252-01444-8, University of Illinois Press) - a history of E-J, focusing on its methods used to discourage unionizing.
- William Inglis, George Johnson and His Industrial Democracy (Copyright 1955 by Huntington Press, Inc.)] - a glorified version of the company's history sponsored by the company.
- Partner's All, subtitled A pictorial narrative of an Industrial Democracy (Copyright 1938 by Huntington Corporation)] - a glorified version of the company's history sponsored by the company and characterized on the frontpiece as A souvenir gift to the E.J. Workers from George F. Johnson.
