APRIL, 1957
PAGE 5
TIME STUDY ENGINEER
Archaic Newspapers In Employee-CoUection
Chronicle Great Moments In World History
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On June 24, 1815, The Times
of London stopped its presses to
include dispatches of one of his-
■tory’s most significant events.
Napoleon Bonaparte, having es
caped from exile on Elba, had
regained France and was ad
vancing with his troops on the
Prussian ports of Thuin and Lu-
bez on the Sambre.
The Duke of Wellington sent
a list of casualties from the
heavy English losses, an account
of the heroism of the Duke of
Brunswick, who fell gallantly at
the head of his troops, and re
joiced that the enemy had been
I'outed.
This news account is among
the contents of a June 24, 1815
copy of The Times. A four-page
tabloid, it is one of five old
'newspapers in a collection own-
by James M. Cooper, chief
Time Study engineer.
the others are; Whale
men’s Shipping List and Mer
chant’s Transcript, New Bed
ford, Mass., January 5, 1847;
C^aily Evening Standard, New
Bedford, February 15, 1850; The
New York Herald, April 16,
^865; and the Boston Sunday
Post, February 7, 1909.
The old papers have been care-
preserved between the
Pages of a large family Bible,
Passed down through the Coop-
family from New England.
When the Time Study en
gineer came to Firestone five
years ago, he brought along the
Bible and the old journals, to
gether with several other items
of historical value.
Oldest in the collection is The
Times of London. Besides chron
icling the “long and sanguinary
conflict” of the closing days of
the Waterloo campaign — final
and decisive engagement of Na
poleon’s military career—it re
flects the home-front English
life of that day.
In its four-column format are
announcements of art exhibits,
sermon topics, creditors’ notices;
front-page ads for domestic serv
ants, board and lodging, appren
tices, household goods, tutoring
and nursing services.
THE COPY of the January 5,
1347 edition of the Whalemen's
Shipping List and Merchant’s
Transcript represents one of the
earliest-published trade journals
in America. It was issued to
serve the Yankee whale sperm-
oil industry of the past century,
with listings of vessels and their
masters, sailing and arrival
schedules, whale-fishery state
ments, imports of oil and bone,
tonnage, prices, and stocks of oil
on hand.
The four-page gazette carries
a small lineage of advertising,
telling of whaling insurance,
services of law counsellors, and
of such products for sale as
maritime instruments, oars, an
chors, whaling canvas and cord
age, buckwheat, hair brushes,
raisins, hats, boots and shoes,
butter, and tar and rosin.
A note from the publisher
authorized postmasters to serve
as agents for the paper, “de
ducting from our subscription
price of a dollar per annum, ten
per cent for their trouble.”
AN OUNCE of gold dust (then
$16) would pay for pulling one
tooth in the “Golden Eldorado”
of California; and the slave issue
was brewing into Clay’s Com
promise, when the Daily Eve
ning Standard of New Bedford,
Mass., came out in its first edi
tion.
The copy which Mr. Cooper
has is from the first number of
Volume I. As such, it may be a
rare addition to the archives of
American journalism.
Contents indicate a lineup of
fiction, humorous yarns, adver
tising, editorials against slavery
and in defense of a free press,
household hints, news of
weather, courts, market, local
events, marriages and obituaries.
Household hints, for example,
tell how to rid the home and
premises of rats, roaches and
ants by “plugging up their en
trance holes with common hard
soap.”
ITEMS like this one add hu
man interest:
OUTSTANDING BASKETEERS OF LITTLE LEAGUE
^ The fourth annual Gaston County Midget
aslcetball Tournament ran its course without one
the teams which won an opening round in a
earlier in the contests. The Firestone Little
.^^gue Team dropped out of the tournament at
request of the sponsoring Optimist Club of
Estonia, and coaches involved in the tourna-
^ent.
The Firestone team was described as “too good”
Y its members defeated the Belmont champion
Club 92-13, March 4. Coached by Ralph
^^hnson and Bob Purkey, plant recreation direc-
the Firestone team was out front talent-wise,
, ^ in stature—with members averaging around
^ ^eet in height.
“To
urnament officials requested us to enter a
team,” said Johnson. “By the rules all of our boys
were elegible to play.” He added: “It’s the first
time in my 20 years of coaching that I’ve had a
team superior enough to be asked to drop out of
competition.”
Tournament director Robert L. Laye comment
ed: “Coach Johnson was very nice about the
whole incident.“ After a scrutinizing interpreta
tion of the tournament rules, the director request
ed the Firestone team to withdraw, when at the
only game it played, it stood about 80 points bet
ter than any of the other contesting teams.
In the photo, front row, from left: Boyce Mor
row, Tommy Yancey, Speedy Williams and
Cookie Stewart. Back row, from left: Ray Jones,
Johnny Dobbs, Sammy Honeycutt and Roger
Lunsford.
K
OUT OF THE PAST—Chief Time Study Engineer James M.
Cooper and his secretary, Mrs. Howard Baldwin find interest in the
pages of a Civil War newspaper, which reported the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.
“A coffin maker having apart
ments to let, posted his bills an
nouncing the same upon the cof
fins in his window: ‘Lodging for
Single Gentlemen.’ ”
Ads tell of dry goods, feathers,
furniture. Daguerreotype artists,
airtight cooking stoves, patented
sewing machines, leeches for
blood-letting, and hair tonics.
Patent medicines were such as
“magic” salves, wild cherry and
yellow dock bitters, and ca
thartic pills.
Galvanic belts and necklaces,
bracelets and “magnetic fluid”
offered “removal and permanent
cure of all nervous diseases and
about all other diseases .. . when
everything else has been tried
in vain.”
Two of Mr. Cooper’s old news
papers tell of events in the life
of Abraham Lincoln. The New
York Herald of April 16, 1865
describes in detail the assassina-
Wyandotte
—From page 3
for the Navy Air Corps, contain
ers for shipping rockets and
many other products.
THE ORIGINAL building was
constructed in the shape of an
“L,” but three additions since
then have squared off the struc
ture and extended it at the back.
The latest addition was complet
ed in 1956 and houses a new
heavy press line for metal stamp
ings; a steel warehouse area; and
a truck dock for shipping. The
powerhouse is a separate build
ing.
In the last few years there has
been an extensive program of
modernization and equipment to
make products of the highest
possible quality at the lowest
possible cost. The most modern
material handling methods in the
business have been built into the
plant.
A vital operation at the plant
is the chemical and metallurgical
laboratory. In the process con
trols section all materials, such
as incoming raw steel, lubricants
and paints, are tested; and in the
metallurgical section, strength.
tion of the Great Emancipator.
The paper, published the day
following the tragedy, supplied
readers with what must have
been their first authentic infor
mation of what had happened.
It tells of “excitement of the
wildest description” in Washing
ton after the news was spread
that the President had been
shot.
In other columns there are
dispatches from the battlefields
of the Civil War, including the
text of the proclamation by Con
federate President Jeff Davis,
addressed to what the paper
terms “his deluded followers.”
THE OTHER newspaper in
the Cooper collection is a special
four-page section of the Boston
Sunday Post, February 7, 1909,
commemorative of the 100th an
niversary of Lincoln’s birth.
Three pages are filled with such
items as a tribute to Lincoln’s
mother, poetry “which most
stirred Lincoln’s soul,” stories
about Honest Abe and anecdotes
attributed to the martyred Presi
dent.
Somewhat unusual is the four-
color reproduction of a young
woman’s photograph which is a
part of a display layout of
beauty hints for women.
Of his collection of antique
newspapers, Mr. Cooper plans
to offer two of them—those on
Lincoln—to the library of Ash
ley High School. A whaling
museum in his home town of
New Bedford, Mass., will be of
fered the copy of the 1847
whaling journal. The others he
will keep until he determines
places where they will be of
most value as historical items.
hardness and chemistry of steel
and steel products are tested.
Unique at the plant is the
automatic continuous inert gas
welding process for assembling
mounting rings to rim bases to
produce demountable tubeless
truck tire rims.
The plant is headed by Wil
liam H. Vaughn. L. J. Campbell
of Akron is president of the Steel
Products Company.