Waitt & Bond

Last updated
Waitt & Bond
Industry Tobacco
Founded1870
Defunct1969
FateClosed
Headquarters Saugus, Massachusetts (1870–1872)
Boston, Massachusetts (1872–1919)
Newark, New Jersey (1919–1963)
Scranton, Pennsylvania (1963–1969)
Key people
 Charles Henry Bond
Henry Waitt
ProductsCigars

Waitt & Bond, Inc. was an American cigar manufacturer that was in operation from 1870 to 1969. During the early 20th century it was the largest cigar manufacturer in New England and one of the largest in the United States. [1]

Contents

Early years

Waitt & Bond was established in 1870 by Charles Henry Bond and Henry Waitt. [2] They began manufacturing cigars in a small shop in the Cliftondale neighborhood of Saugus, Massachusetts. [1] In 1902 the business was incorporated in Maine. In October 1917 it was incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts. [3]

In 1885, Waitt & Bond, which was then doing business on Blackstone Street in Boston, launched what would become its most famous brand - "Blackstone". [4]

In 1891, Waitt & Bond moved to a large factory on Endicott Street in Boston. Bond remained Waitt & Bond's president and general manager until his death in 1908. [1] After Bond's death, the company was run by William E. Waterman. In 1913 Waitt & Bond moved into its newly built factory, which was the largest cigar factory in the world under one roof. [5] [6] Located at 716 Columbus Avenue, it contained automated machinery for handling tobacco as well as facilities for humidifying, storing, and routing the product. [3]

Labor troubles and the switch to machine manufacturing

During the early years of World War I, Waitt & Bond hired many refugees from Belgium. In addition to being expert cigar makers, many of them were socialists. [5] After this, Waitt & Bond clashed with the local union, who threatened to strike if the company hired more employees, implemented the use of machinery, weighed tobacco, ended the practice of cigar makers using their mouths to shape cigars, or dismissed an employee without the consent of a union committee. [5] [7]

On July 7, 1919, workers in all of Boston's major cigar factories walked off the job. [8] On August 13, Waitt & Bond announced that it was leaving Boston and relocating to Newark, New Jersey. [8] Once in Newark, the company switched from manufacturing by hand to manufacturing by machine. They were able to resume production six months after the strike was called. After Waitt & Bond adopted the use of machinery, other cigar manufacturers began to follow suit and by 1924 almost every other large cigar manufacturer was either using it or experimenting with it. [5] [6] The switch to machine manufacturing allowed Waitt & Bond to substantially increase its production. This, along with the move to a more central location for distribution, gave the company the ability to go after the national market. [7]

From 1929 to 1939, Waitt & Bond was a subsidiary of Porto Rican American Tobacco. [9] [10] In March of 1938, severance for Waitt Bond Inc., from the tobacco companies (including Porto Rican American Tobaccos Companies and the Congress Cigar Company Inc.,) was announced in the NY Times. [11]

In 1943, Waterman died and Harley W. Jefferson, a longtime tobacco executive who had most recently served as head of the tobacco section of the War Production Board, was chosen to succeed him. [12] Jefferson resigned as president in 1956 at the age of 72, but remained with the company as a director and consulting chairman. He was succeeded as president by Thomas A. Hansbury, Waitt & Bond's secretary-treasurer. [13]

In 1955, the company acquired the cigar-making assets of the D. Emil Klein Company, which then changed its name to Demlein Corp. [14] In 1961 it acquired Alles & Fisher, Inc., which produced the JA, '63, and Pippin cigar brands. [15]

Later years, renaming, and closure

In 1962, Hansbury resigned and chairman Edward Rapaport assumed his duties on a temporary basis. [16] Fred A. Roff, Jr., former president of Colt's Manufacturing Company, was elected president in 1964. [17]

In 1963, the company headquarters moved from Newark to Scranton, Pennsylvania. [18] In June 1964, Waitt & Bond's stockholders voted at their annual meeting to rename the company the Blackstone Cigar Co. after its most popular brand. [19] In 1969 the company closed. [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gateway, Inc.</span> Former American computer hardware company

Gateway, Inc., previously Gateway 2000, Inc., was an American computer company originally based in Iowa and South Dakota. Founded by Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond in 1985, the company developed, manufactured, supported, and marketed a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories. At its peak in the year 2000, the company employed nearly 25,000 worldwide. Following a seven-year-long slump, punctuated by the acquisition of rival computer manufacturer eMachines in 2004 and massive consolidation of the company's various divisions in an attempt to curb losses and regain market share, Gateway was acquired by Taiwanese hardware and electronics corporation Acer, in October 2007 for US$710 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swedish Match</span> Swedish multinational tobacco company

Swedish Match AB is a Swedish multinational tobacco company headquartered in Stockholm. The company manufactures snus, nicotine pouches, moist snuff, tobacco- and nicotine-free pouch products, chewing tobacco, chew bags, tobacco bits, cigars, matches, and lighters, with operations in Sweden, Denmark, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. The company's origins can be traced back to 1868, and Ivar Kreuger. Swedish Match has played an important part in Sweden's industrial development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Sherman</span> American tobacco brand

Nat Sherman is the brand name for a line of handmade cigars and "luxury cigarettes". The company, which began as a retail tobacconist, continued to operate a flagship retail shop, known as the "Nat Sherman Townhouse", located on 42nd Street, off Fifth Avenue, in New York City from 1930 to 2020. Corporate offices are now located at the foot of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newell Brands</span> American consumer products company

Newell Brands is an American manufacturer, marketer and distributor of consumer and commercial products. The company's brands and products include Rubbermaid storage and trash containers; home organization and reusable container products; Contigo and Bubba water bottles; Coleman outdoor products; writing instruments glue ; children's products ; cookware and small appliances and fragrance products.

The Journeymen Cigar Makers' International Union of America (CMIU) was a labor union established in 1864 that represented workers in the cigar industry. The CMIU was part of the American Federation of Labor from 1887 until its merger in 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. Upmann</span> Brand of Cuban cigars

H. Upmann is a Cuban brand of premium cigars established by banker Hermann Dietrich Upmann. The brand is currently owned by a British corporation, Imperial Brands. The cigars are manufactured by Habanos S.A., the state-owned tobacco company in Cuba, and Altadis in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepin Garcia</span>

Don José "Pepin" Garcia is the CEO of El Rey de los Habanos, Inc, a cigar company in Miami, also known as My Father Cigars. He is a noted cigar maker living in Miami, Florida. Born in Cuba, he is a master cigar roller and blender, and the creator and maker of numerous popular cigar brands.

Swisher is an international tobacco company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Godfrey Phillips India</span> Tobacco manufacturer

Godfrey Phillips India Ltd. (GPI) is a tobacco manufacturer headquartered in India. The firm was originally established in London in 1844. GPI was one of the first UK companies to mass-produce cigarettes, apart from being one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco along with John Player & Sons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piloto Cigars Inc.</span>

Piloto Cigars Inc. is a privately held company that produces the Padrón cigar brand from Nicaragua. Commonly known as Padrón Cigars, the company was founded September 8, 1964 in Miami, Florida by Cuban-native José Orlando Padrón. In 1970, Padrón moved the company to Estelí, Nicaragua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quesada Cigars</span> Dominican cigar factory

Quesada Cigars, formally known as MATASA, is a family-owned factory based in the Dominican Republic that specializes in the manufacture of premium cigars. It is best known brand is the Quesada, Casa Magna, Heisenberg & Fonseca line of cigars. Its current president and owner is Manuel "Manolo" Quesada, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scandinavian Tobacco Group</span> Cigar manufacturer

Scandinavian Tobacco Group is a manufacturer of cigars and traditional pipe tobacco. The city company is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is a publicly listed Company on NASDAQ Copenhagen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Llaneza</span> American businessman

Frank Anthony Llaneza was a tobacco blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium cigar industry at the end of the 20th Century. Llaneza is best known for the creation and manufacture of a number of popular cigar brands in the years after the 1962 Cuban Embargo, including Hoyo de Monterrey, Punch, Bolivar, and Siglo.

The Tampa cigar makers' strike of 1931 took place in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida in the months of November and December. Some strikers were jailed, "Lectors" were banned and there was a lockout. Following legal intervention, some workers returned to work at previous wage levels but others were not re-employed. Lectors had by tradition been elected by the workers and, as well as reading aloud newspaper articles, often from left-wing radical publications, they recited and acted more generally, including from classic works – effectively they provided a form of education for illiterate workers. The most significant effect of the strike in the longer term was that the lector culture was brought to an end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Henry Bond</span> American businessman

Charles Henry Bond (1846–1908) was an American businessman who was president and general manager of Waitt & Bond, one of Boston's largest real estate holders, and a patron of the arts.

Henry Waitt was an American businessman who co-founded Waitt & Bond with Charles Henry Bond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cigar makers' strike of 1877</span> American campaign

The cigar makers' strike of New York lasted from mid-October 1877 until mid-February 1878. Ten thousand workers walked out at the height of the strike, demanding better wages, shorter hours and better working conditions, especially in the tenement manufacturing locations. The strike was supported by the Cigar Makers International Union of America, local chapter 144.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brown Brothers Tobacco Company</span>

Brown Brothers Tobacco Company was located at 119 State Street in Detroit. The building was built for brothers, Robert Hamilton Brown and John Brown who founded a cigar manufacturing business which was, at one time, the largest cigar factory under one roof in the world. Brown Brothers were known for the following cigar brands: Newsboys, Cremo, Fontella, Carmencita, Evangeline and Detroit Free Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITG Brands</span> US tobacco company

ITG Brands, LLC is the third-largest American tobacco manufacturing company in the United States. It is a subsidiary of British multinational Imperial Brands. ITG Brands markets and sells multiple cigarette and cigar brands and sells blu eCigs. The company was created in 2015 and has its production, headquarters, and regulatory compliance facilities located in Greensboro, North Carolina.

On July 7, 1919, roughly 2,100 of Boston's 2,400 cigar makers walked off the job in protest of their employer's failure to meet their demand of a 13 7/11% raise. Three of Boston's largest cigar manufacturers chose to leave the city rather than meet the union's demands and a number of union members formed a cigar-making co-operative. By August 30, 1919, all of the remaining manufacturers had reached agreements with the union.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Bond Drowns in Bathtub". The Boston Daily Globe. July 5, 1908.
  2. ↑ "Waitt & Bond, Inc". Standard Corporation Records. Standard statistics co., inc. 23. 1944.
  3. 1 2 Moody's Manual of Investments: American and Foreign. Moody's Investors Service. 1922.
  4. ↑ The United States Patent Office (1894). "Levy et al. v. Waitt et al". Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office. 68 (6–13). Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Can the Cigar Come Back?: A Great Industry in Process of Evolution". Barron's. April 21, 1924.
  6. 1 2 Cooper, Patricia Ann (1987). Once a Cigar Maker . University of Illinois Press. p.  144.
  7. 1 2 Dickinson, Roy (July 2, 1920). "When Labor Goes Too Far". Business Digest and Investment Weekly. 25 (26): 834–836. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  8. 1 2 "Waitt & Bond, Inc, to Leave Boston". The Boston Daily Globe. August 14, 1919.
  9. ↑ "Porto Rican American To Take Control of Waitt & Bond, Inc., Maker of Blackstone Cigar". The Wall Street Journal. May 3, 1929.
  10. ↑ "Porto Rican American Tobacco". The Wall Street Journal. September 9, 1939.
  11. ↑ "Waitt & Bond Quits Tobacco Combination At Request of Two Associated Concerns". The New York Times. 1938-03-10. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  12. ↑ "Named as President Of Waitt & Bond, Inc". The New York Times. October 6, 1946.
  13. ↑ "1930 Office Boy Named Waitt & Bond President". The New York Times. August 2, 1956.
  14. ↑ "D. Emil Klein to Sell Some Assets". The Wall Street Journal. January 17, 1955.
  15. ↑ "Waitt & Bond Acquisition". The Wall Street Journal. May 19, 1961.
  16. ↑ "Hansbury Quits as President, Director of Waitt & Bond". The Wall Street Journal. June 14, 1962.
  17. ↑ "Fred A. Roff, Jr., Is Elected President of Waitt & Bond". The Wall Street Journal. January 9, 1964.
  18. ↑ "Waitt & Bond Says It Has 'Stemmed Tide' Of Cigar Sales Decline". The Wall Street Journal. June 17, 1963.
  19. ↑ "Waitt & Bond Name Change". The Wall Street Journal. June 15, 1964.
  20. ↑ "Though Avanti stands as the sole survivor of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre... [Derived headline]". The Times - Tribune. July 8, 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.