Friday, April 27, 2018

New England Pin Company, No. 4 "Anatomy of a Pin Company"



PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNAL: The “magnificent plant of the New England Pin Company," built in Winsted between 1880 and 1905, consisted of five manufacturing blocks, of varying height, arranged as two arms around a long, narrow yard, the parallel arms traversed by two bridges and by the showcase, 1901, five-story, factory block (previously discussed) with the 100 foot frontage facing Bridge Street and the train station.

The New England Pin Company history has been well documented by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation which reports that by the early 1890s the Winsted pin works had become the largest pin factory in the United States, employing 60 hands capable of producing 7,000,000 pins per day. The success allowed New England Pin to acquire smaller rivals, Diamond Pin, Empire Pin, Pyramid Pin and by 1905 more than double the work force and production in Winsted.

As the Trust dociuments explain: "The company’s product consisted of a wide variety of needlepointed pins. These ranged between one-half of an inch and four inches in length and included office, bank, shawl, book, blocking, and hair pins sold under such brands as ‘Crown,’ ‘Victoria,’ ‘No Plus Ultra,’ and many others.”

Before there were clips, pins held everything. Passing from room to room, block after block, winding the oddly contorted paths of shifting pipe-rail up and down winding stairways, floor after floor, avoiding the places where floors have gone soft, it’s impossible to find a pin or anything to do with pin making. And, in fact, in 1927 New England Pin merged with Star Pin and National Pin and moved operations downriver to Shelton, and it was woolen underwear, not pins, that began to be manufactured here until 1955 when all except the old pin buildings were carried off by the flood, and manufacturing ceased in these blocks and passages built for making pins.