? ?
- While Neenah and Menasha became well-known
for making many kinds of paper,
other industries,
like the Jersild Knitting Company,
made an abundance
of different products.
Early foundries, like the Bergstrom Stove Company,
began to specialize,
producing a full line of stoves,
for both cooking and heating.
And as communities like Menasha improved their streets,
the Aylward Sons' Foundry branched off from stoves,
and into municipal castings,
like storm sewers to drain newly-paved roads.
Ed Aylward would split off from the family company,
and start what would become the Neenah Foundry,
which grew to be one of the largest in the state.
And as cities around the country
installed water and sewer systems,
manhole covers,
from the Neenah Foundry,
became an iconic part of the streetscape,
in all 50 states, and many countries.
[cast iron clangs]
The George Banta Publishing Company
was started by George Banta, Senior,
and greatly expanded
by his son, George, Junior.
But it was his mother, Ellen Pleasants Banta,
who took the first steps to grow the business,
which became
one of the largest printing companies in the country.
It all began in George and Ellen's home,
where George printed forms for his insurance business
with a small press on the dining room table.
Eventually, Ellen convinced him
to start a storefront business in Menasha,
which grew with local trade.
- He had some health challenges
and so he would go off to the Southwest,
sometimes for months at a time.
So, it fell to his wife, Ellen,
to take over running the company.
And this was unheard of at the time
for a woman to run any kind of enterprise.
One of her brothers had moved east,
and got in on the ground floor of Quaker Oats.
And he saw an opportunity,
in his position there,
to throw some business in the direction of his sister.
- So when they were set to come up,
Mrs. Banta came in and told everybody,
"You run every print press in the plant."
- Just take paper--
blank paper, used paper, whatever--
and run it through
whatever number of presses they had at the time
so that they looked exceedingly busy.
- And here was this din of activity and stuff going on!
And, as the story goes,
the Quaker Oats people said,
"Man, if they're doing this up here,
they really must know what they're doing."
And so, it was this sham
that got them their first big break.
But it was Mrs. Banta who did it.
- George Banta Publishing
would soon become a national leader
in printing books
for schools, universities,
and the military.
But it was a contract to print soap wrappers
that helped to launch another industry,
the Menasha Printing and Carton Company.
Purchasing its own equipment, the company expanded
into printing millions of bread wrappers.
And after the National Biscuit Company
first packaged their Uneeda crackers
in a printed paperboard box,
Menasha Printing and Carton
joined a growing revolution in food packaging.
They focused next
on making printed cartons for ice cream makers,
and also cartons for butter makers, nationwide.
The business bought so much paper
from the Marathon Corporation in Wausau
that the owners there decided to buy the company.
- And while their name didn't survive--
In merging, Marathon moved here,
which tells you how big the production was here.
- Marathon Corporation became a major manufacturer
of packaging and consumer products,
like waxed paper.
The packaging revolution
became bad news for the Menasha Woodenware Company,
as demand for wooden containers
like cracker barrels and butter tubs
plummeted.
- It's falling out of favor,
you know.
The world was changing,
and they stumbled upon this product called "corrugated."
And they were one of the first companies to invest in
a corrugator.
Not understanding a lot about it,
they literally had to make a shift
to this new product.
? ?
- So, there was a lot of production and work
within those two cities that was available
to almost anybody there.
I kept going down to Gilbert's
to put in my application,
and, finally, I got a job there.
I started on March 10th, 1937.
I worked in the finishing room,
and they would bring the reams of paper
from the cutting machine.
First, it was sorted to see if there were any bad spots on it.
And then the ladies would fan it up and count it.
And we would
seal 'em up like a package.
And sometimes, I would go home at Noon.
We had a bowling team,
and we got to go to the tournament one year
in La Crosse.
Gilbert used to have parties.
I made a lot of nice friends.
It was a lot of fun.
- And most of the industry
were all locally-owned people.
The Kimberlys and the Clarks from Kimberly-Clark
lived in Neenah.
And George Banta lived in Menasha.
But those people met their workers
and knew them on a first-name basis.
They went to church.
Saw them at church and the school functions
and civic functions.
I know my dad told me
that sometimes they'd only have work for two days a week,
but nobody got laid off.
- The connection that everybody had
in making it work
was very prominent in those days.
You had to have people stirring the pulp.
You had to have people printing the paper.
You had to have everybody.
Even if you were a secretary,
you had a sense of ownership
because it was in your town.
It was in your hometown,
and you were helping make it go.
It was all one big operation.