The Oshkosh Northwestern of February 21, 1921 reports:
The "Wooden Ware Log" is the title of a publication which is being issued by-
monthly by the employees of the Menasha Wooden Ware Company. The
paper is devoted to social and industrial questions. Miss Catherine Hickey is
editor-in-chief and other members of the staff are taken from the various
departments of the mill and office.
I'm not sure if I should groan or applaud the pun.
The Menasha Public Library has a (small) subset of the Menasha Wooden Ware historical records. The collection includes at least some of these Log publications as well as several pix from the late 1930s of employees in the various departments. I found a pic of my grandfather with his co-workers, which was pretty neat. I also found some of his pension information from the mid-1960s. Spoiler alert: They didn't pay big pensions back then!
ReplyDeleteThose who are younger than us probably don’t realize how big a deal the Wooden Ware was in Menasha. A lot of people were employed there over the years, including several of my relatives. And as you know from looking at the old City maps, the Wooden Ware used to own most of the island between the canal and the Fox River and an awful lot of land on the south side of the River, including where Graphic Packaging (called Marathon when I was a kid) is now.
Given what has happened to a lot of other companies over the years, I’m rather amazed that the corporation is still in business. It went through at least 3 bankruptcies that I’m aware of and has had to reinvent itself several times, but the corporation is still running.
I know that there have been a few books written on the Wooden Ware, but most of them were self-serving autobiographies and other junk that fawned over the management that happened to be in power when they were written.
I think there’s an opportunity there for somebody who knows something about business to write a Masters’ or Doctoral dissertation on the corporation’s struggles over the years. And it isn’t me because I don’t know that much about business.