Sam's recent question about Rushton's open gunwale Indian Girls and the 1915 catalog from "J. W. Rushton" got me wondering about the changes in J. H. Rushton's canoe business after his death in 1906. Dan's page at https://woodencanoemuseum.org/builder-history/j-h-rushton-0 provided a broad outline and he kindly filled in the details during a phone conversation last night. We discussed how difficult it must have been to run a canoe company during the early 1900s up through the First World War. It reminded me of some research I did several years ago but had never gotten around to publishing as shown below.
This gives an indication of how competitive things were during this period by showing the total number of companies building canoes in Maine alone. Much of this information was drawn from advertising but I also stumbled into a series of regular reports from Maine's Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. These included the number of employees in the larger shops. The totals ranged from 152 in 1910, to 210 in 1912, and 126 in 1966 even though the number of canoe building companies had dropped to ten by then.
The various build records and estimates provide a glimpse of the productivity for some of these builders. The Kennebec Canoe Company reported 20 employees in 1910 and produced about 850 canoes. This works out to around 43 canoes per employee overall. Carleton also reported 20 employees and made about 800 canoes for a similar productivity of 40 canoes per person. Old Town reported 50 employees with 2300 canoes for the high score of 46 canoes each. Morris must have had a tough year with 31 employees and an estimated 875 canoes or 28 each. Most canoe builder's employees were highly seasonal so these totals probably varied widely over a year.
Therefore, it is not surprising that J. H. Rushton's descendants struggled to keep his canoe business going after his death and B. N. Morris wasn't able to get his business rebuilt after the fire in 1919.
Benson
This gives an indication of how competitive things were during this period by showing the total number of companies building canoes in Maine alone. Much of this information was drawn from advertising but I also stumbled into a series of regular reports from Maine's Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. These included the number of employees in the larger shops. The totals ranged from 152 in 1910, to 210 in 1912, and 126 in 1966 even though the number of canoe building companies had dropped to ten by then.
The various build records and estimates provide a glimpse of the productivity for some of these builders. The Kennebec Canoe Company reported 20 employees in 1910 and produced about 850 canoes. This works out to around 43 canoes per employee overall. Carleton also reported 20 employees and made about 800 canoes for a similar productivity of 40 canoes per person. Old Town reported 50 employees with 2300 canoes for the high score of 46 canoes each. Morris must have had a tough year with 31 employees and an estimated 875 canoes or 28 each. Most canoe builder's employees were highly seasonal so these totals probably varied widely over a year.
Therefore, it is not surprising that J. H. Rushton's descendants struggled to keep his canoe business going after his death and B. N. Morris wasn't able to get his business rebuilt after the fire in 1919.
Benson
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