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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December i, 1901. 



A PICTORIAL PRESENTATION OF BUSINESS GROWTH. 



THE three illustrations on this page give an excellent 

 idea of modern rubber factory growth — in this case 

 applied to the plants of the Tyer Rubber Co. at Ando- 

 ver, Massachusetts. It may interest some incidentally 

 to know that the pioneer factory shown in the smallest cut was 



that in which the Editor of The India Rubber World— then 

 a callow youth of sixteen— took his novitiate in rubber manu- 

 facture under the guidance of that ideal gentleman, the late 

 Henry George Tyer. It was in 1856 that Mr. Tyer laid the 

 foundations of the business manufacturing under his own name 

 and laid them well. One now remembers that he was one of 

 the pioneer manufacturers of the then popular " compo " shoe. 

 He was also the inventor of the " Congress arctic." furnishing 

 millions of yards of a special goring to the rubber shoe com- 

 panies of that day. As the inventor of white zinc rubber it 

 was natural that he should manufacture druggists' sundries, 

 which to-day form so important a part of general rubber 

 manufacture. The second illustration shows the plant as it 

 was when the Tyer Rubber Co. was formed. The officers of 



that company were and are Horace H. Tyer, son of the founder, 

 president ; John H. Flint, treasurer. President Tyer is a prac- 

 tical rubber man in every sense of the word ard keeps in per- 

 sonal touch with the whole business, while Treasurer Flint is 

 accounted one of the best types of New England financiers. 

 Under such guidance the business has grown enormously, as 

 shown in the last illustration, which is not an ideal but a real 

 view. The new factory is in every respect a modern up to- 

 date plant, equipped with the latest and best machinery and 

 with all labor saving devices. It is of mill construction, the 

 designer and builder being the well known rubber mill archi- 

 tect, Henry J. Preston, of Boston. The factory buildings are of 

 brick, three stories in height in front and four and five stories 

 in the rear, and contain 82,000 square feet of floor space. The 

 power is furnished by a 400 horse power Slater engine, to which 

 is attached a rope drive. The plant is electric lighted and 

 equipped with sprinklers and the latest devices for fire protec- 



tion. There are at present 400 hands employed, and the busi- 

 ness is growing so rapidly that a larger force and additional 

 buildings will doubtless soon be added. The company, by the 

 way, is a member of the Rubber Manufacturers' Mutual Fire 

 Insurance Co., of Boston. 



