Whitehead & Hoag Company
Location/OriginNewark, NJ
BiographyFrom: http://www.tedhake.com/viewuserdefinedpage.aspx?pn=whcoBeginning of company:
In his shop, Whitehead was printing programs for local picnics and parties plus printing badges on silk, when Hoag began to sell him twine. A friendship developed and the two formed a new business partnership that was incorporated in 1892. It was soon to become the country's largest business in the manufacture of advertising novelties.
End of company:
Bastian Bros., of Rochester N.Y. (founded in 1895) was a long-time competitor of W&H. Bastian, being a union company, could not complete with W&H's prices and like many other agents and jobbers would subcontract out some of their work and buy parts from W&H.
There were several reasons why W&H sold out to Bastian Bros. When Phillip Hoag died in 1953, no member of the family was left on the board or in a policy-making role. Another reason was the company had a long history of making a great deal of money for one or two years and then operating at a loss for several years. A third reason was the company's insistence on making a top quality product and their refusal to advertise any other way than on their own product. In the early years, if a customer insisted that the W&H logo not appear on the item, the priced was raised considerably.
W&H first offered the sale of the company to Bastian Bros. The sale took place and W&H closed its factory in May, 1959. The president of Bastian at the time of the sale came to Newark, ordered the factory to be sold and any unusable machinery, dies or tools to be scrapped. W&H kept records of every item they ever made and these records were ordered destroyed. Bastian continued to use W&H's name, finally phasing it out in 1964-65.
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