Why were there very few businesses started or owned by women in 1900?
At this time women did not have the opportunities for work that women do today. Women did not have equal rights with men. Married women were usually expected to work in their homes but not in business and industry. When women did work in industry it was often in a job that was considered “women’s work” such as a garment factory running a sewing machine.

In this case many women would work together. Women would almost never work side by side with men in a factory setting.

Women could not apply for most jobs. When unmarried women did get work outside of their homes, they were often paid less than what men received for the same work.

Why were women not considered equal to men?
It wasn’t until the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 that women won the right to vote. It was argued that women didn’t want to vote, that they didn’t have the knowledge to be informed voters or that they couldn’t serve in the military. Women were thought to be weaker and incapable of performing leadership roles. Women were valued in their homes, but not usually in public life.

What kinds of work did most women do at this time?
Most women worked in their home or another person’s home. Unmarried women often worked as hired help in the home of another family. They cleaned, cooked, ironed, canned, hauled water, washed clothes and did everything that needed to be done in the home—often without machines to make the work easier.

But many unmarried women taught school. This was one job outside the home that provided women with opportunities for leadership. Being a school teacher allowed women respect in their community. But if a female teacher married she was expected to stop teaching.

Some unmarried women found work in businesses such as the North Star Egg Case Company in Waterloo.

Later, unmarried women found work in businesses such as the Waterloo Courier.

• The Altstadt & Langlas Baking Company was located at 1428 Mulberry St in Waterloo.
• C.F. Alstadt was president and manager of the company and Mr. Langlas was secretary and treasurer.
• Each day the company could bake twenty-five thousand loaves of bread, two thousand pies and fifteen thousand cookies and other small goods.
• The company used 14,000 pounds of flour annually.
• By 1915, the company employed 60 people.
• It utilized eight wagons and three auto trucks in delivery.
• It shipped goods to eighty different towns and cities.

Source: John C. Hartman's History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume 2, published in 1915

George P. Beck started the first sash and door factory in Black Hawk County, located on what was then the site of The Nauman Company

• In 1884 the business was incorporated as the Beck-Nauman & Watts Company, with Mr. Nauman, as president.
• Mr. Beck managed the business until 1897 when he sold out his interest in the company.
• The company was then known as The Nauman Company, one of the largest west of the Mississippi River.

• As a sash and door company, it produced wood products for homes including doors, windows, and interior and exterior trim.

Source: "History of Black Hawk County and Representative Citizens" by Isaiah Van Metre, 1904.

From: Explorations in Iowa History Project, University of Northern Iowa.

• In 1901 William Galloway, a farm implement dealer and salesman, started the Wilson-Galloway Company in Waterloo. It was located on Sycamore Street.
• The company manufactured farm machinery and vehicles.
• In 1905 he started the William Galloway Company which at first manufactured harrow carts and wagon box manure spreaders. Later it produced gasoline engines, cream separators, manure spreaders, tractors, harrows and other implement specialties.
  

  

• In 1907 he moved the company to new buildings in the Westfield Addition of Waterloo.
• The buildings covered over 14 acres of floor space.
• The company employed between 800 and 900 people.
• The business averaged $2,000,000 a year, and the appraised value of the real estate, buildings and equipment were set at $1,462,000.
• Officers of the company were: William Galloway, president; J.G. Brinkerhoff, vice president; J.W. Henderson, secretary and treasurer; and J.T. Swift, F.W. Powers, C.E. Pickett and E.W. Miller, directors.

• Most of the sales were made by mail through the catalog system, and over 300,000 names of actual customers were on the books of the firm.
• Shipments were made to all the states of the Union, to Canada and to many foreign countries, including China, Australia, the Philippines, Cuba, the British West Indies, Siam, India, Russia, England, France, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the various countries of South America.
• Most of the foreign shipments were cream separators and gasoline engines.
• Shipping points in the United States were maintained in Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City and St. Paul.
• During World War I, the company received a tractor order amounting to $1,600,000 from the British Government.
• The William Galloway Company spent $2,000,000 for advertising in farm journals.

• William Galloway started the Galloway Club that provided food and lodging for his customers in a large building near the factory.
• Because farmers came to Waterloo from nearly every state in the Union, any farmer who came to Waterloo to check out the Galloway products got free meals and lodging at the Galloway Agricultural Club.
• Galloway was so successful because he was able to recognize the needs of his customers and knew how to sell his products. One such ad showed an image of him standing behind a manure spreader with the text, "We stand behind our products."

Source: The Waterloo Daily Courier, August 5, 1922.

• George B. Miller was the president of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company.
• In 1899 George B. Miller purchased his brother's and the others' interests in the factory.
• The company was one of the most extensive and important industries in Waterloo in 1915.
• The company consisted of four buildings including a main building, two smaller buildings and a foundry.
• The company employed seven hundred workers in 1915.
• The company manufactured gas engines, traction engines, spreaders, cream separators and a number of smaller articles.
• The plant was equipped with the most up-to-date and efficient equipment for 1915.

Source: John C. Hartman's History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume II, 1915.

• The Litchfield Manufacturing Company was founded in 1879 at Webster City, Iowa, by Lyman Litchfield.
• In 1903 it was moved to Waterloo and incorporated as the Litchfield Manufacturing Company.
• The company employed 85 people and the plant covered 3700 feet of floor space.
• The company manufactured all kinds of farm machinery.
• In 1917, the Litchfield Manufacturing Company focused on making just one product and making it very well. It was the Litchfield Manure Spreader. The company actually made lots of models to meet the needs of farmers across the country and throughout the world.

• By 1922, the company had grown to where it owned a factory site of 30 acres on West Parker Street and employed 450 people.
• When manufacturing the manure spreaders, the company purchased only the raw material such as steel and lumber. From wheels to wagon springs, all other parts were made in the Litchfield factory.
• The Litchfield Company believed that manufacturing all of the parts in their factory would guarantee the quality of their product.

In 1903, William A. Welty was a blank book salesman and auditor for the firm of Matt Parrott & Sons. He also sold fountain pens for the company.

• Fountain pens were a fairly new invention at that time.
• Fountain pens were not like ballpoint pens of today. Fountain pens had to be filled with liquid ink from a bottle. The ink was released from the pen onto the paper as it was used for writing.
• Mr. Welty heard customers complain often that their fountain pens leaked, blotted and dropped ink where it was not supposed to go.
• After thinking about the problem, Mr. Welty developed a plan. He invented a new fountain pen design that didn’t leak. It had a small air vent that allowed the ink to flow smoothly onto the paper.
• In 1905 he patented his new invention. Mr. Welty continued to improve the Welty Fountain Pen and new patents were written in 1906 and 1909.
• At first, Mr. Welty’s new invention was manufactured in Janesville, Wisconsin. But as he began to sell more and more pens, he decided to manufacture them himself. He made them in the rear of a little office supply store.
• A firm in Minneapolis gave him his first big order of 500 pens at $2 each.
• As Mr. Welty sold more and more of his pens he needed more and more help. So he hired an expert pen maker who could manufacture pens much faster.
• Mr. Welty advertised his products in trade journals and magazines.
  
  
• A competing company that produced pens in Toledo, Ohio, didn’t like having Mr. Welty take their sales away. This company tried to buy Mr. Welty’s company. He refused their offer. Then the company in Toledo tried a different plan. They wanted to buy all of his products and be the only distributor. Again Mr. Welty refused their offer.
• Mr. Welty thought his pens could be sold all over the world. So he took out patents in foreign countries as well as the United States.
• Because Mr. Welty couldn’t make pens fast enough, he asked William T. Fitzpatrick to be his business partner.
• This new partnership worked very well. Their business continued to expand and grow rapidly.
• Mr. Welty’s company was incorporated in 1913.

Source: John C. Hartman's History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume II, 1915.

In 1902, W.W. Marsh started the Iowa Dairy Separator Company.

• It was incorporated and employed 15 workers.
• At that time, the company only manufactured cream separators.
• In 1903 the company moved to a large building on Mullan Avenue. As the company grew, more buildings were constructed.
• In 1908 the company began to make gas engines as well as cream separators.
• By 1922, the company employed 500 workers and at times the number of employees reached 1000. It was one of the biggest separator manufacturing plants in the Midwest.
• The company produced two kinds of cream separators and two kinds of gasoline engines.
• Products were shipped to all the states of the Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, and South America. An export office is maintained at London, England, and branch houses, with a manager in charge of each, were located at Syracuse NY, Columbus OH, Omaha NE, Minneapolis MN, Kansas City MO, and Oklahoma City OK.

Source: Waterloo Daily Courier, August 16, 1922.

• John Deere was born in Rutland, Vermont on February 7, 1804. There he became a blacksmith and was well-known for his good work.
• Times were tough in Vermont. In 1836 he moved west to find work.
• He settled in Illinois where his skills as a blacksmith were needed badly.
• There he shoed horses and repaired plows and other farm equipment like blacksmiths always did.
• He noticed that the soil in the Midwest was very different from that of the sandy soil of the New England states. The thick black dirt often found in the Midwest stuck to the cast iron plows farmers from the east were used to working with. Every few steps a farmer had to stop and scrape the soil from the plow.
• In 1837, John Deere invented a plow that would do a better job in the thick black Midwestern soil.
• He took a broken saw blade and worked it into the shape of a plow. Then he polished it so the soil would not stick to the surface of the plow. His new plow pulled easier than any other plow to that time. It soon became the standard all over America.
• While John Deere was developing his business in Illinois, pioneer settlers were beginning to move into Iowa. Settlers in Waterloo were building houses, starting mills along the river, and erecting factories to produce goods that could be sold to markets in Iowa as well as other states.
• The John Deere Company developed the same way that industries in Waterloo grew and expanded. One of these Waterloo companies was the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company.

• In 1899 George B. Miller purchased the Waterloo Gas Engine Company. One of the company’s most important products was the Waterloo Boy tractor.

• By 1915, the Waterloo Gas Engine Company was one of the most important businesses in Waterloo. It employed seven hundred workers.
• The company consisted of four buildings including a main building, two smaller buildings and a foundry. The plant was equipped with the most up-to-date and efficient equipment for the time. It manufactured gas engines, traction engines, spreaders, cream separators and a number of smaller articles.
• Like the Waterloo Gas Engine Company, the John Deere Company was producing many different kinds of farm equipment and selling products all over the country as well.
• In 1918, the John Deere Company purchased the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. The name was changed to Deere and Company.
• Tractors became an important part of the John Deere line of products.
• Deere and Company went on to become one of the largest and most important industries in Waterloo.

Rath Packing Company

• E.F. Rath’s father, George had been in business in Dubuque since before the Civil War. After their plant there was destroyed by fire, they moved the business to Waterloo.
• The first Waterloo plant cost $25,000, and was very small.
• During the first year only about fifteen workers were employed, and 10,000 hogs were slaughtered.
• In 1922, the company had branches at Des Moines, Galesburg IL, Memphis TN, and Birmingham AL.
• At that time, E.F. Rath was secretary and treasurer of Rath Packing Company in Waterloo.

• The hogs, cattle, sheep and calves were purchased within a radius of 150 miles of Waterloo.
• Livestock was delivered in trucks and wagons by the farmers who were paid cash.
• Livestock were led up a chute to a killing room. Then the carcasses went to the steaming, scraping and scalding areas.
• The carcasses were placed on a conveyor which took them through the other stages of packing including the chill room, salt cellar, smoker, and freezing room.
• The plant had a refrigerating system which was used for chilling dressed carcasses and maintaining low temperatures in the storage rooms. The temperature of one freezing room was kept below zero.
• From the freezing room, the meat was loaded on refrigerated railroad cars for distribution to markets across the country.
• As the company grew, more buildings were added to the plant.

Source: Waterloo Daily Courier, June 27, 1922

• In 1904 Perry E. Canfield came to Waterloo and organized the Canfield Lumber Company.
• The company was incorporated with a capital stock of 30,000 dollars.
• It was located on Falls Avenue in Waterloo.
• Lee Canfield, of Cedar Rapids, was president; C.J. Schneck, of Waterloo, was vice president, and Perry E. Canfield was secretary and treasurer.
• In 1915, the plant was the largest of its kind in Waterloo covering 10 acres of land.

Source: John C. Hartman's History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume II, 1915.

From: Explorations in Iowa History Project, University of Northern Iowa.

• In 1895, Louis Cass established the Waterloo & Cedar Falls Rapid Transit Railway.
• In 1896 he extended the system in Waterloo by converting the horse-car line into an electric line.
• In 1897 he built the line to Cedar Falls.

• In 1898, he made further extensions in Waterloo.
• In 1899, he purchased the Cedar Falls & Normal Gasoline Road which he converted into an electric line.
• In 1901 he built the line to Denver, Iowa.
• In 1902 he extended it to Denver Junction to connect with the Omaha division of the Great Western.
• In 1910 he extended the line from Denver Junction to Waverly.
• In 1912 he built the road from Waterloo to La Porte City.
• In 1913 he built the line from La Porte City to Urbana.
• In 1914 he completed the line from Urbana to Cedar Rapids.

The WFC&N created a subsidiary company to build Electric Park. This amusement park provided much needed entertainment to the many factory workers and their families. You could ride the popular roller coaster, roll around in Barrel of Fun, or dance the night away. The WFC&N streetcars took you right to the park making transportation to the park easy.

The trolleys that ran to Cedar Rapids had open observation platforms, individual seats, and served meals! Those who used this service remember the plush cars and the speed at which it traveled (90 mph). As more and more families purchased their own vehicles, the company began losing money and made its last run to Cedar Falls in 1958.

Source: John C. Hartman's History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume II, 1915.