Photo: Neighborhood children at work in the NCR Gardens.
In this excerpt from her autobiography, Lena Harvey Tracy describes her work as the first person hired by John H. Patterson to direct "welfare work" at NCR, in 1897.
People often questioned Mr. Patterson as to his motive in developing the welfare work in his factory and in the community. The phases of that work briefly mentioned in the preceding pages concerned community betterment. Before taking up the phases which were more strictly concerned with the welfare of factory employees, I should like to draw together the incidents and experiences which led Mr. Patterson to explore the possibility of improving industrial relationships. Although some of these experiences are to be found in Samuel Crowther’s book and other less accessible publications, they are mentioned here in the interests of an orderly and consistent story.
It is probable that every industrialist experiences at least once in his business career a period of resentment or of active antagonism on the part of the men and women who work for him. Not everyone, however, meets the situation with the energy and realism of thought that Mr. Patterson displayed. During 1893 the factory had been set afire three times, supposedly by dissatisfied workers, and there had been a succession of strikes and lockouts, but not until the following year did the full revelation of labor discontent come to the president of the company, and then it came by way of a dramatic and overwhelming experience.
Fifty thousand dollars worth of machines, principally exports to England and the Continent, were returned to the factory as defective. They had been tampered with by the use of acids. This was in 1894. Immediately Mr. Patterson applied himself to finding out the reasons for this disaster. He had his office desk moved onto the factory floor and began a systematic questioning of individual workers. Knowing Mr. Patterson, I can believe that this catechism was carried on without rancor or incrimination. All sorts of dissatisfactions were uncovered: the place was dirty; the water in which the night men washed was dirty, whereas the day force had clean water; facilities such as lockers, which should have been for all, were bestowed by favoritism upon a few; the factory was dark, and it was cold. Mr. Patterson decided that the trouble lay in the attitude of the men. "They had no heart in their jobs," Crowther quotes him as saying, "they did not care whether they turned out good or bad work. Then I looked further into conditions and I had frankly to confess to myself that there was no particular reason why they should put heart into their work."
Patterson Takes Action
The diagnosis once made, Mr. Patterson lost no time in applying remedies: wash basins were put in literally over night, the president of the company overseeing the job; lockers and showers followed; wages were raised in spite of the fact that the company was not at that time making money. Welfare work at this factory may be said to date from the moment Mr. Patterson discovered why labor became disaffected.
The turnover among the women employees was especially high, and Mr. Patterson could not at first find out the reason. One morning he arrived at the factory while the employees were coming to work. He found the lights were not yet on and the elevators were not running. Girls were being rudely jostled by men on the dark stairways. The janitors got their orders to have lights and elevators going before work began in the morning and to keep them going a suitable time after work stopped at night. Drama lay at the back of those pictures that Mr. Patterson had sent to Philadelphia to be shown at the Working Girls’ Convention.
There was drama, in fact, in the entire movement. Mr. Patterson was wont to say that the enthusiasm, intelligence, and loyalty of its workers were the elements without which a business could not succeed. He found a small group who already possessed these qualities; a very large group in which they could be inculcated; another small group who would not respond to any efforts to educate or improve them. Mr. Patterson’s aim was to inspire confidence and enthusiasm in the major group by means of fair play and advancement economically, intellectually, socially, and to this end he used every device that occurred to his fertile and farseeing mind. If the device proved good nothing could divert him from using it; if it proved inefficient or socially harmful it might be abandoned with startling suddenness. Even his closest friends could not always accommodate themselves to his ability to grow, and often what seemed to them a sudden and possibly irrational decision was really part of a long-sighted and well-ordered plan.
I did not myself understand this quality at first. In his social experiments he had the drive and imagination of a pioneer, but as soon as the work he had undertaken to do could be done as well or better by a public agency he was ready to turn it over with his blessing. Frequently he worked under cover for a long time to accomplish just that. The kindergarten which was one of his cherished projects was a case in point. As soon as the Dayton school system incorporated kindergartens he terminated the N.C.R. experiment. In fact he encouraged the introduction of the first kindergarten in the Dayton schools by a gift of all the necessary equipment. The same thing happened with regard to the development of school gardens.
This willingness to step aside and let others carry on seems to me a strong refutation of the charge often brought against him in Mr. Patterson’s lifetime, that the motive in undertaking welfare work was to get advertising for the company. The advertising came about, it is true, but only because his achievement was genuine and the advance that he made over previous standards of factory management so immeasurably great that whatever he did became news of prime importance.
Here Lena Harvey Tracy describes a typical week of activities in 1899:
By the summer of 1899 our programs for the neighborhood and for the factory were in full swing, and as fast as an activity proved itself to be of value Mr. Patterson established extensions or branches in a newly developing suburban area, adjacent to the factory, called Rubicon. A statement appears in one of my Sunday School bulletins (Midsummer Number, June 1899) which gives an excellent bird's-eye view of our many activities. It includes a brief contemporary description of the object and method of the N.C.R. welfare work, which reads as follows:
The objects of the special features of the N.C.R. Company are (1) To make the work lighter, and therefore to increase the happiness of the workman; afford him better wages and the Company larger results; and (2) To encourage the best living- mental, moral and physical-among employes and the entire neighborhood.
Method: To accomplish this the Company offers its employes shorter hours, free baths, clean and light buildings, beautiful surroundings in the way of lawns and flowers, lunches for the women in the dining-room, coffee and soup when working overtime, a lunch-room for the officers, the use of 6,000 lanternslides for the pleasure and instruction of employes and the neighborhood, frequent opportunities to hear talks by prominent people, and a choice of any of the organizations connected with the factory. The latter include:
Broadly Educational
Kindergarten - 100 pupils - Daily, except Saturdays, 9 A.M.
Kindergarten Extension [Rubicon] - 25 pupils 2 P.M.
Egg-shell Farming School - Kindergarten Room
Kitchen Garden for Young Children - Kindergarten Room
National Penny Banks Open Daily Library
Summer Play Grounds Open Daily with Instructor
Summer Sewing School... for girls and women.. .Wednesdays
Boys' Gardens - 40 boys; $50 prizes South of Factory
Domestic Economy - Administration Building
Cooking Class for girls of South Park, 112 members... Wednesdays, 7 P.M., Saturdays, 2 P.M.
Cooking Class for N.C.R. Women, 68 members Mondays and Fridays, 5.15 P.M.
Industrial School for Girls-Saturdays, 9.30 A.M. Sewing Class for N.C.R. Women - 42 members, Thursdays,12.30 P.M.
Advance Club - 300 members Advance Club Hall, Fridays,10.30 A.M.
Library Open Daily, 12 M. to 7 P.M.
School of Mechanics-25 pupils Thursdays, 7.30 P.M.
Literary, Musical and Social
(For mutual helpfulness and entertainment)
Boy's Brigade-three companies; 100 enrolled-Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 7 P.M.
Young People's Club - 140 members Sunday Evenings
Boys' Club - 120 members N.C.R. House, Wednesdays, 7P.M.
South Park Girls' Literary Club - 140 members N.C.R. House Mondays, 7 P.M.
Woman's Century Club. .264 members... Bimonthly Wednesdays, 12.30 P.M.
Autoharp Club - 14 members Tuesdays, 5.30 P.M.
Band and Orchestra - 20 members Mondays, 7.30 P.M.
Janitors' Glee Club-24 members Mondays, 7.30 P.M.
Girls' Gymnasium Class - 32 members Saturdays, 4 P.M.
Boys' Gymnasium Class-44 members Saturdays, 2 P.M.
Progress Club for men of factory - 369 members Alternate Mondays, 7.30 P.M.
Women's Guild of South Park - 40 members First and Third Thursdays of each month, 3 P.M.
Kindergarten Association Thursdays, 2.30 P.M.
Dancing School-three classes, 216 members Dining-room
Relief Association - 933 paying members... .Tuesdays, 12.30 P.M.
National Bicycle Club - 90 members.. Outdoor Art Club House
Religious Education
Sunday School-attendance 600 - Sundays, 2.30 P.M. Sunday School Teachers Association-25 members Fridays, 7.30 P.M.
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor Monday, 7 P.M.
Source: How My Heart Sang: The Story of Pioneer Industrial Work, by Lena Harvey Tracy (New York, 1950), pages 138-142.
