John D. Larkin

Last updated
John Durrant Larkin
John Durrant Larkin.jpg
Born(1845-09-29)September 29, 1845
DiedFebruary 15, 1926(1926-02-15) (aged 80)
Resting place Forest Lawn Cemetery
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Bryant & Stratton College
Occupation Business magnate
Known for Larkin Company
SpouseHannah Frances Hubbard (married May 10, 1874)
Children7
Parent(s)Levi and Mary Ann Durrant Larkin

John Durrant Larkin (September 29, 1845 - February 15, 1926) [1] was an American business magnate who pioneered the mail-order business model, developed (with business partner and brother-in-law Elbert Hubbard [2] ) the marketing strategy of offering premiums to customers, [3] introduced revolutionary employment innovations, [4] and commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright's first major public work, the Larkin Administration Building. [5]

Contents

Early life

Larkin was born in Buffalo to parents who emigrated from England to the United States in 1832. [6] He attended public schools in Buffalo during his childhood and began working at the age of 12 at Western Union as a telegraph messenger. [6] In 1862, he began work in the soap manufactory of Justice Weller, [6] his sister Mary's husband. For the next eight years he worked for Weller in Buffalo, learning the business. From courses at Bryant and Stratton he took in 1865, he learned business bookkeeping and when Weller moved to Chicago in 1870, Larkin went with him. He was admitted to the partnership of J. Weller & Co. the next year. While in Chicago, Weller introduced Larkin to Frances Hubbard whom Larkin married in 1874 at her parents' home in Hudson, Illinois. [7]

Larkin Soap Company

In 1875, Larkin sold out his interest in J. Weller & Co. to Mr. Weller, and he and his wife moved to Buffalo. Larkin then set up his factory "J. D. Larkin, Manufacturer of Plain and Fancy Soaps." [6] His only product was a yellow laundry bar named Sweet Home Soap. The business grew and by 1878, the company produced nine different soap products, ranging from "Boraxine" soap powder through a variety of laundry soaps to "Jet" harness soap, "Oatmeal" toilet soap and Glycerine. [7]

Larkin's first salesman was his wife's brother, Elbert Hubbard, who had also been working as a salesman for J. Weller & Co. in Chicago. Hubbard decided to follow his sister and Larkin to Buffalo and work as a salesman. In 1878, Darwin D. Martin was hired as a salesman in Boston. By 1880, as sales to general stores and other merchants who would buy products in large quantities increased, Martin was hired in Buffalo and became the first, and at that time the only, hired office-worker of the Larkin Company as all office work was done by Larkin himself.

While at the Larkin Company, Hubbard pioneered the idea of mail-order merchandising. By offering premiums and bonuses in return for sales, the company was able to dispense with a sales force. [8] By 1902, Larkin needed a building to consolidate offices scattered throughout all of his factories. Martin, who had risen to Treasurer and Corporate Secretary, and William Heath, Larkin's brother-in-law and the head of the Legal Department, suggested Frank Lloyd Wright. Larkin consented and Frank Lloyd Wright received his first commercial commission, the Larkin Administration Building which was completed in 1904 and accommodated 1800 corresponding secretaries, clerks, and executives. [9]

In 1914, the Larkin Company grew so rapidly that the floor space of its offices covered 64 acres. [6]

By 1925, the Larkin Company manufactured most of the 900 catalog items in factories covering sixteen-and-a-half acres on Seneca Street in Buffalo. In addition to their own soaps, cleansers, cosmetics, perfume, pharmaceuticals and food, Larkin offered everything from furniture and clothing to utensils and radios.

Buffalo Pottery

In 1901, Larkin founded Buffalo Pottery to supply the Larkin Company with premiums of china dinnerware for its customers. [10] Completed in 1903, the company's plant was the largest fireproof pottery in the world; and it was also the only pottery in the world completely operated by electricity. [11] In addition to the china produced for distribution as premiums, Buffalo Pottery manufactured many lines of china sold via both retail and wholesale channels and exported its ware to more than 25 countries. The pottery ultimately turned to the production of commercial chinaware. Changing its name to Buffalo China, Inc. in 1956, the company was one of the largest manufacturers of commercial chinaware in the United States. [12] Buffalo China was sold to Oneida Limited in 1983, [13] and ceased operations in 2004. [14]

Title & Mortgage Guarantee Co. of Buffalo

In 1916, Larkin organized the Title & Mortgage Guarantee Co. of Buffalo which provided title insurance, mortgages, title searches, and appraisals to the greater Buffalo area. [15] The company was headquartered at 36 Church Street in Buffalo, New York. [16] By January 1929, over $35 million of assets had been invested in the company's mortgage certificates. [16] But following the stock market crash, the company foundered, and in 1933, was taken over by the New York State Insurance department for rehabilitation. [17]

Legacy

Larkin died in 1926, one of Buffalo's most respected citizens, [18] and is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo. He was a benefactor of the University of Buffalo, where by 1926, he donated $250,000 (equivalent to $4,303,000in 2023). [6]

While the Larkin Administration Building was demolished in 1950, a large portion of the original Larkin manufacturing complex survives today including the Larkin Terminal Warehouse which has been converted to corporate offices and houses the headquarters of First Niagara Bank, now home of Key Banks Buffalo division.

Larkin is the eponym of the Buffalo neighborhood known as Larkinville and its Larkin Square.

See also

Related Research Articles

Oneida Limited is an American manufacturer and seller of tableware and cutlery. Oneida is one of the world's largest designers and sellers of stainless steel and silverplated cutlery and tableware for the consumer and foodservice industries. It is also the largest supplier of dinnerware to the foodservice industry in North America. The company operates in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, marketing and distributing tabletop products, which include flatware, dinnerware, crystal stemware, glassware and kitchen tools and gadgets. The factory in upstate NY was sold to Liberty Tabletop, who is the sole manufacturer of US made flatware. The company originated in the late-nineteenth century in the Oneida Community in Oneida, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elbert Hubbard</span> American writer and philosopher

Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he had early success as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. Hubbard is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wrigley Jr.</span> American businessman (1861–1932)

William Mills Wrigley Jr. was an American chewing gum industrialist. He founded the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in 1891.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darwin D. Martin House</span> American historic house in New York (1905)

The Darwin D. Martin House is a historic house museum in Buffalo, New York. The property's buildings were designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903 and 1905. The house is considered to be one of the most important projects from Wright's Prairie School era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Barton House</span> Historic house in New York, United States

The George F. Barton House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built 1903–1904, and is located at 118 Summit Avenue in Buffalo, New York. The Barton House is part of the larger Darwin D. Martin House Complex, considered to be one of the most important projects from Wright's Prairie School era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roycroft</span> United States historic place

Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895, in the village of East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters. The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larkin Administration Building</span> Building by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo, New York

The Larkin Building was an office building in Buffalo, New York, noted for innovations that included central air conditioning, built-in desk furniture, and suspended toilet partitions and bowls. Located at 680 Seneca Street, it was demolished in 1950.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graycliff</span> Historic house in New York, United States

The Graycliff estate was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1926, and built between 1926 and 1931. It is approximately 17 miles southwest of downtown Buffalo, New York, at 6472 Old Lake Shore Road in the hamlet of Highland-on-the-Lake, with a mailing address of Derby. Situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie with sweeping views of downtown Buffalo and the Ontario shore, it is one of the most ambitious and extensive summer estates Wright designed. It is now fully restored and operates as a historic house museum, open for guided tours year round. There is also a summer Market at Graycliff, free and open to the public on select Thursday evenings. Graycliff Conservancy is run by Executive Director Anna Kaplan, who was hired in 2019.

The Fiesta Tableware Company is a ceramics manufacturer located in Newell, West Virginia, United States. Established in 1871, it is widely known for its Art Deco glazed dinnerware line, Fiesta. In 2002, The New York Times called Fiesta "the most collected brand of china in the United States".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hubbard House (Illinois)</span> Historic house in Illinois, United States

The Hubbard House is a historic home in Hudson, Illinois, one of two houses on the list of United States Registered Historic Places. The other one, located along the same street, was the Gildersleeve House. The Hubbard House is significant as the boyhood home of American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard. Hubbard lived in Hudson and attended school there; he stayed in the village until he was 16. The original wing of the house was built in 1857 by a doctor from Buffalo, New York, Silas Hubbard. In 1872 the two-story section of the house was constructed in a typical I-house design. The home has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertha Crawford Hubbard</span>

Bertha C. Crawford Hubbard (1861–1946) was one of the founders of the Roycroft movement, an American branch of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darwin D. Martin</span> American businessman

Darwin Denice Martin was an early 20th-century New York State businessman best known for the house he commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design.

Red Wing pottery refers to American stoneware, pottery, or dinnerware items made by a company initially set up in Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1861 by German immigrant John Paul, which changed its names several times until finally settling on Red Wing Potteries, Inc. in 1936. The pottery factory that started in 1861 continues to the present day under the names of Red Wing Pottery and Red Wing Stoneware. There was a respite in production when Red Wing Pottery Sales, Inc. had a strike in 1967 causing them to temporarily cease trading. The company still makes both zinc/Bristol glazed products as well as salt-glazed, hand-thrown, kiln fired items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William R. Heath House</span> Historic house in Buffalo, New York

The William R. Heath House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built from 1903 to 1905, and is located at 76 Soldiers Place in Buffalo, New York. It is built in the Prairie School architectural style. It is a contributing property in the Elmwood Historic District–East historic district and a City of Buffalo landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Buffalo, New York</span>

The Architecture of Buffalo, New York, particularly the buildings constructed between the American Civil War and the Great Depression, is said to have created a new, distinctly American form of architecture and to have influenced design throughout the world.

Upstate New York has been the setting for inventions and businesses of international significance. The abundance of water power and the advent of canal and rail transportation provided nineteenth century upstate New York entrepreneurs with the means to power factories and send their products to market. In the twentieth century, hydroelectric power and the New York State Thruway served the same roles. In April 2021, GlobalFoundries, a company specializing in the semiconductor industry, moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley, California to its most advanced semiconductor-chip manufacturing facility in Saratoga County, New York near a section of the Adirondack Northway, in Malta, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Restaurant ware</span>

Restaurant ware, or most commonly hotelware, is vitrified, ceramic tableware which exhibits high mechanical strength and is produced for use in hotels and restaurants. Tableware used in railway dining cars, passenger ships and airlines are also included in this category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larkin Company</span> Defunct soap company

The Larkin Company, also known as the Larkin Soap Company, was a company founded in 1875 in Buffalo, New York as a small soap factory. It grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called "The Larkin Idea" that transformed the company into a mail-order conglomerate that employed 2,000 people and had annual sales of $28.6 million in 1920. The company's success allowed them to hire Frank Lloyd Wright to design the iconic Larkin Administration Building which stood as a symbol of Larkin prosperity until the company's demise in the 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larkinville</span> Neighborhood of Buffalo in Erie County, New York, United States

Larkinville, also known as The Hydraulics, is an area of Buffalo, New York located near downtown, South Buffalo and Canalside. Once an industrial neighborhood, it is now home to offices, shops, and a public gathering space called Larkin Square that regularly features food trucks, events, and concerts. The current form of the neighborhood came as a result of the gentrification of the former headquarters complex of the Larkin Soap Company, which includes the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, and other abandoned warehouses nearby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buffalo China</span> Chinaware Manufacturer

Buffalo China, Inc., formerly known as Buffalo Pottery, was a company founded in 1901 in Buffalo, New York as a manufacturer of semi-vitreous, and later vitreous, china. Prior to its acquisition by Oneida Ltd. in 1983, the company was one of the largest manufacturers of commercial chinaware in the United States.

References

  1. Larkin, Daniel Irving (1998). John D. Larkin, a Business Pioneer. Amherst, NY: D.I. Larkin. ISBN   978-0961969714.
  2. Champney, Freeman (1983). Art & Glory: The Story of Elbert Hubbard. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN   0-87338-295-1.
  3. Laird, Pamela Walker (2001). Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN   9780801866456.
  4. Stanger, Howard R. (2000). "From Factory to Family: The Creation of Corporate Culture in the Larkin Company of Buffalo, NY". Harvard Business History Review. 74 (Fall 2000): 407. doi:10.2307/3116433. JSTOR   3116433. S2CID   153833552.
  5. Quinan, Jack (2006). Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building: Myth and Fact. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN   9780226699080.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "JOHN D. LARKIN DEAD". The New York Times. February 16, 1926. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  7. 1 2 LaChiusa, Chuck. "John D. Larkin - Biography". buffaloah.com. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  8. Odell, Digger. "The Larkin Soap Company". bottlebooks.com. Archived from the original on 23 May 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  9. "Demolition! The Larkin Administration Building - 680 Seneca Street". WNY Heritage Press. Archived from the original on 29 August 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  10. Altman, Seymour; Altman, Violet (1987). The Book of Buffalo Pottery (2nd ed.). Schiffer Pub. ISBN   0887400884.
  11. China : Its Origin and Manufacture. Buffalo, NY: Buffalo Pottery. c. 1915.
  12. Conroy, Barbara J. (1999). Restaurant China : Identification & Value Guide for Restaurant, Airline, Ship & Railroad Dinnerware. Collector Books. ISBN   157432148X.
  13. "Oneida to Buy Maker of Commercial China". The Wall Street Journal. September 15, 1983.
  14. "Oneida Completes Sale of Buffalo China Factory; Plant to Operate as Niagara Ceramics Corporation". globenewswire.com (Press release). 13 March 2004.
  15. Niagara Frontier, A Narrative and Documentary History, Vol.III. Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1931. p. 359.
  16. 1 2 "In 1929 - In 1932". Buffalo Evening News. 26 April 1932. p. 13.
  17. "State Starts Rehabilitation of Local Mortgage Firm". Buffalo Evening News. 15 Aug 1933. p. 1.
  18. Conlin, John. "John D. Larkin". Buffalo Spree. Retrieved 1 September 2015.