Former home of the Advance Whip and Novelty Company in MA

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This simple, brick, Italianate structure is intricately linked with the history of Westfield's whip-making industry, which fueled the city's 19th-century development and gave the city a worldwide reputation. Four of Westfield's whip manufacturers; the Sanford Whip Company, Lay Whip Company, Massasoit Whip Company, and Donovan Brothers, used the building at one time or another for whip manufacturing.

The Sanford Whip building was one of several facilities acquired by the United States Whip Company when it consolidated more than a dozen of Westfield's whip companies in 1892. When the automobile brought about the decline of the whip industry, the Standard Whip Company bought the building and successfully adapted to the changing economy, manufacturing novelties and party favors for nearly seventy years as the Advance Whip and Novelty Company.

This simple industrial building with its Italianate windows is a representative example of the type of construction used in Westfield's whip industry, complementing both in style and in history the plants of the United States Whip Company Complex on Main Street, the H. M. Van Deusen Whip Company on Arnold Street, and the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company at 360 Elm Street.

Colonial Period (1640-1780)

When Englishman William Pynchon traveled west from Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1636 to establish a settlement along the Connecticut River, one of his goals was to establish a fur trade with the natives of the area. The region known as Woronoco or Wauwunockoo (meaning, according to some sources "it is fat hunting", and "the country with windings" according to other sources) quickly attracted Pynchon's attention. Nestled between the Westfield or "Great" River and the Little River and surrounded by mountains, Woronoco was a rich source of hides and fish. Woronoco (which eventually became Westfield) soon became the western outpost of the Massachusetts colony. While the earliest well-documented European settlement of the area took place around 1658, evidence indicates that there were trading outposts in Woronoco as early as the 1640s.

The native peoples, the Woronocos and Pochassics, members of the Algonquin nation, sold furs and fish to early European traders. Salmon and shad were plentiful in the Westfield and Little Rivers, while Woronoco's forests abounded with fur-bearing game, such as beaver. The floodplains and escarpments set in the juncture of the Westfield and Little Rivers formed some of Westfield's best agricultural land.

During the late 17^th Century, Westfield was primarily an agricultural community, producing crops and livestock for its residents' own use as well as raising cattle, which were driven east for the Boston markets. In May 1669, Westfield was incorporated as a town, receiving its name because it was the westernmost settlement in the Massachusetts colony at that time.

Early transportation routes generally followed native trails. The oldest route through town appears to have been the north-south road leading from Northampton to Hartford, which passed through Westfield along the route taken by today's routes 10 and 202. In 1673, the highway to Springfield (now US Route 20) was improved, with a new bridge built across the Westfield River at Frog Hole. Westfield's population at that time was about 150.

Early development in Westfield was concentrated near the confluence of the Westfield and Little Rivers. Settlers cultivated the fertile topsoil in the broad meadowlands immediately adjacent to the two rivers.

In 1671, Thomas Dewey and other early settlers summoned Edward Taylor (1642-1729), a Harvard-trained minister, to become Westfield's first permanent minister. Edward Taylor was a vital force in Westfield's religious life for nearly sixty years. An English-born and Harvard-educated scholar, Taylor was also a physician who is also recognized as one of America's finest 17th-century poets. In 1676, when King Philip's War threatened Springfield's outlying settlements, Reverend Taylor was one of several Westfield residents who protested the governor's order to abandon the western settlement and relocate its residents to Springfield's main plantation on the Connecticut River.

After 1700, settlement expanded from the center settlement outward. Construction of a new Great River Bridge (Elm Street Bridge) in 1753 improved the link between the north and south sides of the river (the bridge was rebuilt again in 1800, when it became a toll bridge). By 1765, Westfield had 191 houses occupied by 1,324 people.

Through the is century, Westfield's abundant rivers powered gristmills, sawmills, and tanneries. Agriculture continued to supply distant cities as well as local needs. With the close of the Revolution, the town grew quickly, and by 1790, Westfield hosted a population of 2,224.

Federal Period (1790-1830)

After a late 18th-century population spurt, growth stalled in Westfield during the first two decades of the 19^th Century, with the population remaining stable at around 2,100 residents. During most of its early history, Westfield had relied primarily on agriculture for its income. Historian John Lockwood speculates that the brief check in the town's growth may have been due to a shortage of new arable land. Given the mountains hemming Westfield in to the west and east, much of the best agricultural land was probably already under tillage after nearly a 150 years of settlement.

Recovery was not long in coming, however. In the early 19^th Century, Westfield began its transition from an agricultural community into an industrial one. The town's new industrial base evolved around three principal products: whips, cigars, and paper.

Early Industrial Period (1830-1870)

Transportation, as well as manufacturing, increased Westfield's prosperity. In 1822, Westfield's citizens approved the construction of the Westfield portion of a canal that would join the Farmington (CT) Canal project and create eighty miles of navigable inland waterways opening to Long Island Sound at New Haven.

By 1829, the new canal was open from Westfield to New Haven, CT. By 1835, the link between Westfield and Northampton was complete. The new canal brought cheap transportation and gave Westfield a direct link to a major shipping port.

During the construction of the canal, Westfield's population began to change. Irish immigrants were imported to do the heavy labor of digging and masonry work required for canal construction. Many of them stayed on to work in the new whip and cigar factories. From the 1820s on, Westfield's population would include more and more new ethnic groups.

In spite of a brief flurry of initial profit, the new canal never achieved its expected success. It was difficult to maintain, and was quickly displaced by the railroad, which used some of the canal beds and rights-of-way. While the canal was still operating for north-south transportation, the Western Railroad (later the Boston & Albany) was building an east-west line in the 1840s, opening service from Westfield to Chester in 1841.

The Western Railroad linked the town with Springfield to the east and Albany to the west. By 1852, the Northampton & Westfield Railroad had been formed to build a new rail line along the old canal right-of-way. By 1855, the Canal Railroad (later the Hampshire & Hampden Railroad, and finally the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad) was completed from New Haven to Westfield, although the Northampton branch had not yet been finished. That same year, telegraph service was initiated between Springfield and Westfield.

Street improvements continued through the mid 19^th Century. In 1858, brick sidewalks were installed on Elm Street from the Green to the Great River. In 1859 a Park and Tree Committee began planting elms on the Green and along many of the main streets, including the aptly named Elm Street. In 1861, the Westfield Gas Company was founded, producing coal gas to illuminate streetlights, public buildings, factories and residences. While the town had had fire companies since the 1820s, increasing concerns about public safety prompted the creation of a fire department in 1861 and a police department in 1869.

By 1860, Westfield had a population of 5,055. Westfield's primary economic base was still agricultural, but the manufacture of whips and cigars was rapidly taking over as the town's leading income generator. During the Civil War, the town's industrial base included 22 whip companies, nine cigar manufacturers, four paper manufacturers, a foundry, a distillery, two gunpowder manufacturers, Johnson's organ factory, a gas manufacturer, a machine shop, a steam engine factory, and a carriage maker.

Early Whip Manufacturing

The industry that gave Westfield its nickname of the "Whip City" had small beginnings. Westfield entrepreneurs Titus Pease and Thomas Rose may have had a small whip-making operation as early as 1801, although Joe Jokes is usually given credit with first putting together crude hickory and horsehide whips for market in 1808. The 1895 Westfield directory also attributes Westfield's first whip-making operation to Thomas Rose and Titus Pease, who made something called "The Hanchett Whip," "twisted stock whips, made of white oak … covered with black sheepskin. The lash was made of sheepskin of a russet color." According to the directory, Rose and Pease began their work in 1801.

After a slow start, around 1820 the whip-making industry took off on a nearly century-long boom, when D. L. Farnham visited a Boston whip factory and came back with notes about how he might make a machine for plaiting whips. With Henry Douglas and Samuel Lindsay, Farnham tried to duplicate the machine he had seen in Boston. Whipstock braiding was originally a home occupation, often performed by women who might turn out two or three dozen lashes in a day's work. This operation involved using a device called the "Lindsay barrel loom" to plait horsehide to cover rattan and whalebone stocks. Horsehide was also used for the whiplashes.

Hiram Hull (1796-1861), another Westfield entrepreneur who had been hiring local women and girls to make hand-braided whips since about 1810, followed Farnham's example in 1821, introducing an improved plaiting machine from Providence, Rhode Island. Flahive credits Hull with bringing "scientific whip making" to Westfield. Hull developed a plaiting machine that increased production efficiency and speed. Around 1850, Hull introduced another innovation, adapting the design of a shoe-lacing machine for whip plaiting and doubling his production.

Although Hull was a pioneer in the field, his company was not the largest in town. Competitor Hiram Harrison (b. 1807) had that distinction in the 1850s. Harrison was a Westfield native who became involved in both the whip and cigar-making businesses in his early twenties. Boardman Noble made the products, while Harrison peddled them from town to town. Harrison set up a new shop on the corner of Main and Cross Street, turning it into the largest whip-making business in town.

In 1855, Hull and Harrison merged in a partnership that eventually became the American Whip Company, which Harrison headed until his retirement in 1868. In 1837, when the whip-making industry was just starting to take off, thirteen factories employed 154 men and 410 women. By 1860, Westfield boasted dozens of whip-making factories, earning its reputation as the "Whip City." Westfield's manufacturers were known for producing whips of the highest quality.

Raw materials for whip making came from all over the world: rattan from Singapore, rawhide from India, rubber from South America, and whalebone from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Some companies specialized in making parts for whips, with some making only whip buttons, others making only mountings, braids, snaps, or leather shipping boxes. Westfield whips became a common stock-in-trade for New England's Yankee peddlers.

Late Industrial Period (1870-1910)

By 1870, Westfield had a population of 6,679, with nearly 15% of them foreign-born. The town's total population had tripled in the previous hundred years. The largest whip manufacturer, the American Whip Company, put out nearly 20,000 whips in a day. The town had 28 whip makers with 600 male and female employees, nearly 10% of the population. Thirty-five cigar-making firms employed 167 men and 64 women.

In December 1878, a heavy snowfall followed by a twelve-hour rainstorm swelled the Westfield River. The dike along the river collapsed in several places, sending floodwaters rushing through downtown Westfield, covering an area bounded by School Street, the Westfield River, Elm Street, and Charles Street with three to ten feet of water.

The town recovered, and through the 1880s, Westfield continued to grow. The Great River Bridge was once again rebuilt, and a new dam and dike constructed to channel waterpower to the factories on the river's banks. Telephone lines were installed in 1880. The 1880-81 Westfield Directory describes the town in glowing terms:

Growth of the Whip Industry

Although at first glance a very simple object, each mass-produced whip took about 100 separate steps to make. Picturesque Hampden enumerated the various supplies used in American whip-making:

The whalebone, which had first formed the core of the whips, had been replaced by rattan, and the barrel loom, which had been such an innovation in the 1820s, had long been replaced by a steam-powered plaiting machine refined over the course of several decades from the one first developed by Hiram Hull. Strips of rattan and rawhide were glued together, sometimes weighted with a piece of iron or steel, and often covered with rubber and vulcanized to create a resilient waterproof coating. Long thin strips of hide (usually horsehide, sheepskin, or cowhide, but sometimes the skins of exotic animals such as manatees were used) were then machine-plaited around the stock.

The whole assembly was varnished, and buttons, ferrules, mountings, and snappers were added before the whip was ready for shipping. The product was made in a variety of qualities, with prices ranging from as low as 25 cents to as much as $25 for a deluxe model that might incorporate luxury details such as ivory or gold.

One prominent Westfield whip manufacturer was the Lay Whip Company, established in 1872 as E. R. Lay & Sons. In 1886, the company changed its name to Lay Whip Company and was operated by Edwin R. Lay (b. 1834), Fred E. Lay, and E. A. Herrick. A native of Westfield, Edwin Lay first pursued his father's trade of painter after serving in the Civil War. In 1871, Lay took up whip-making and established the company that bore his name. Lay's company eventually opened a branch at Stanstead, Quebec. Its steam-powered factory at 107 Elm Street in Westfield employed 60 people, producing 250 dozen whips and lashes a day.

In 1885, Cornelius Donovan, a son of Irish immigrants who lived on Meadow Street, set up his own lash factory on Elm Street near the corner of Bartlett Street, later moving to Birge Street. Cornelius's brother, John P. Donovan joined the firm, and it became Donovan Brothers. The company remained independent for a few years after many of Westfield's whip makers were bought out by United States Whip in 1892. From 1897 to 1901, the Donovan brothers' operation was part of the National Manufacturing Company, then in 1901, the Donovan Brothers name reappeared as a branch of the United States Whip Company. That year, Donovan Brothers moved into the Sanford Whip building on Elm Street.

George Pirnie (b. 1856), a native of East Chester, NY, moved to Westfield in the 1880s and organized the Massasoit Whip Company in 1888. A graduate of the Franco-American Institute in New York, Pirnie began his business career as a sales representative for the Pratt & Lambert White Lead and Varnish Company. Pirnie worked as vice president of A. C. Barnes Whip Company before forming his own firm. When most of Westfield's whip companies merged less than a decade later, Pirnie became one of the directors of the new company. Massasoit Whip Company's early officers included former traveling salesman Henry O. Case and whip maker Harry M. Gowdy. Both Case and Gowdy had worked with Pirnie at A. C. Barnes, with Gowdy serving as treasurer and Case as salesman.

By 1889, the Bay State Whip Company had acquired the old Atwater Manufacturing facilities across the street from the Sanford Whip Company, and the Lay Whip Company had built a new facility just to the north of it. The Johnson Organ factory had become home to the A. C. Barnes Whip Company and the Westfield Whip Company.

In 1892, Hiram Hull's American Whip Company merged with thirteen other whip manufacturers. Renamed the United States Whip Company, it became the largest whip company in the world. The Sanford Whip Company, Lay Whip Company, and Massasoit Whip Company were just a few of the businesses bought up by United States Whip. The Company's first officers were president L. R. Norton (president of Hampden National Bank) and treasurer Lewis Parker (a former salesman for American Whip).

Although Westfield's town directories continued to list three dozen or so whip companies, most of them were now subsidiaries of United States Whip. The 1895 Westfield Directory listed 37 whip manufacturers, including A. D. Fuller, a maker of toy whips. Twenty-three other companies specialized in various parts for whips, such as snaps, buttons, lashes, and mountings, and the town had one whip importer, probably importing raw materials for whips and exporting the finished products. In 1895, Westfield's factories were making two-thirds of the whips used in the United States.

George E. Whipple, formerly head of Peck & Whipple Company, one of the many Westfield whip makers absorbed by United States Whip, became president of the conglomerate around 1899, and managed the company through the early decades of the 20^th Century. In the 1870s, George Whipple had gotten his start in the whip-mounting factory of his father, J. P. Whipple. The company eventually passed into George's hands, becoming the George E. Whipple Company, before it was acquired by the United States Whip Company. David C. Hull, an 82-year-old son of Hiram Hull, continued to carry on the family business as an employee of the United States Whip Company in 1911.

Massasoit Whip Company president George Pirnie became one of the new conglomerate's directors, while Sanford Whip Company co-founder Frederick Sanford became treasurer of the new company in 1907. Most of the companies subsumed under the United States Whip Company kept their original names, operating as branches of the parent company. Edwin Sanford managed the Sanford, Lay & Peck, and Whipple divisions of the company, and served on the United States Whip Company's board of directors. Edwin also served as a director of the Hampden National Bank. One of his sons, Ray (b. 1883), worked for the American Whip division for a few years, while another son, Leigh (1881-1969), held a succession of positions at various United States Whip Company branches before he became treasurer of the United States Whip Company in 1923.

New factories continued to move into the north side of Westfield after 1900. The Independent Whip Company moved its factory to North Elm Street in 1902. Organized in 1894 and incorporated in 1895, Independent Whip was one of Westfield's leading whip makers. By 1906, Independent Whip had more than 150 employees.

Sanford Whip Company

The site of the Sanford Whip Company was previously part of a large parcel owned by Heman Sackett (1784-1851). There was probably a building on the site in 1874, when Heman's son George Sackett (1818-1879) sold the parcel to his niece, Jennie A. Sackett Bacon (b. 1845), the daughter of Heman Sackett, Jr. (1810-1867); George gave Jennie a $25,000 mortgage for the parcel. George Sackett, who lived just a block away on the corner of Sackett and Orange Streets, was himself a whip lash manufacturer. A year later, Jennie again mortgaged the property for $10,000 to the Woronoco Savings Bank. The substantial mortgages seem to indicate that the building was probably a commercial or industrial building rather than a residence.

The 1878 flood wiped out many of the buildings between Orange Street and the river, probably including Jennie A. Sackett Bacon's property on Elm Street. In 1882, Jennie defaulted on her mortgage to the Woronoco Savings Bank. Samuel Horton bought the property at auction, then re-sold it to the bank, which held it for another year.

A newcomer to Westfield, Edwin L. Sanford (1844-1913), and his brother, Fred A. Sanford (b. 1850), decided to try their hand at whip manufacturing. Natives of Windsor, New York, the Sanford brothers began selling whips in New York State. After returning from the Civil War, Edwin worked for the Coburn Company of Windsor, New York, as a traveling salesman. With C. C. Pratt, Leonard Atwater, and W. H. Owen, he organized the firm of Pratt, Atwater, Owen & Company, which later became the Owen-Sanford Company, manufacturing whips from a New York City headquarters.

By 1870, Pratt, Atwater, Owen & Company also had a Westfield factory on Elm Street, just across from the site that would become the Sanford Whip Company's home (Beers' Atlas). Younger brother Frederick joined the company after working for a few years as a merchant in Waterbury, Connecticut. At the same time, Edwin managed the New York office of the American Whip Company. In 1880, Edwin moved to Westfield, and in partnership with his brother Frederick, Lewis H. Lee, former W. H. Owen & Co. whipmaker Charles J. Bradley, and Lyman L. Sperry, formed the Sanford Whip Company.

The company first operated out of a building on Mechanic Street. In 1882, the new company purchased the former Jennie A. Sackett Bacon property on Elm Street from the Woronoco Savings Bank for $1,600. The next year, the new Sanford Whip Company constructed a 3½-story factory, described by the Springfield Daily Republican as "a model in its conveniences for carrying on the business" Leading Manufacturers and Merchants of Central and Western Massachusetts, an 1886 book promoting Massachusetts businesses, provided a lengthy and flattering description of the company:

The new facility was a utilitarian, gable-front, brick structure, with Italianate-style windows its only ornamentation. The factory included storage areas in basement and attic. One-story ells at the rear housed a coal shed and a horse shed (these ells were removed some time between 1924 and 1947). Shipping, office area, and mounting and varnishing were on the first floor, and covering and finishing were done on the second floor. Five years later, the attic was used for whip-stock making. The company developed several of its own finishing processes and designs, including "the Celebrated Diamond Finish and the Olecameloid Water-Proof Finish, and … the Celebrated Bull Bone Whips". By 1887, the new Sanford Whip Company had 100 employees.

While the Sanfords were making the transition from Mechanic Street to Elm Street, several other new whip companies were also being organized. Three of them eventually used the Sanford Whip facility at 330 Elm Street. In 1882, the Standard Whip Company was incorporated, with Charles C. Pratt as president, A. J. Comstock as vice president, L. M. Higgins as treasurer, and George A. Phinney as clerk. Pratt had formerly been a principal of Pratt, Atwater & Owen, the New York whip manufacturer in which Edwin Sanford had been involved during his early career and whose factory had been located across Elm Street from the site of the Sanford facility before the 1878 flood. In the late 1870s, Pratt left Pratt, Atwater & Owen to work for the Hampden Whip Company. Higgins had worked for coal and wood dealer L. Higgins & Co., and George Phinney had been a whip maker himself.

After the merger with the United States Whip Company in 1892, the Sanford facility at 330 Elm Street appears to have been used for storage; an 1895 Sanborn map shows the building used for "storage of whips," rather than manufacturing. From 1895 to 1899, the Massasoit Whip Company also used the building. Just to the north, another United States Whip Company building had replaced the Barnes Whip Company.

By 1905, the Lay branch of the United States Whip Company had joined the Sanford branch at the 330 Elm Street facility. Donovan Brothers, the whiplash manufacturer run by Cornelius (d. 1929) and John Donovan, was also absorbed into United States Whip and moved from its original location on Birge Avenue into the 330 Elm Street building. Under the Donovan brothers, active whip-making operations were once more underway in the building, with storage on the first floor and attic, creation of rawhide centers on the second floor, and the creation of whip lashes on the third floor.

The United States Whip Company facility at 330 Elm Street had dropped the Sanford name by 1907. At that time, the only branch of United States Whip operating at that location was Donovan Brothers. The Sanborn map refers to it as the "leather branch," with storage in the basement and attic, offices, cutting and braiding facilities on the first floor, drying and making of rawhide centers on the second, and finishing and making of leather stocks on the third floor. By 1917, the attic was again being actively used, this time as a drying area for hides before they were processed.

Early Modern Period (1910-1957)

During the early 1900s, Westfield began to see itself as a city rather than a town. Business and industry, rather than agriculture, had dominated its economy for several decades. Concerns for civic health, improvement, and beautification prompted the establishment of a town Planning Board in 1914. In 1920, a charter committee successfully presented a proposal to Westfield voters, and the town officially became a city, with a population of 18,604.

Paving and electrification programs through the 1910s and 1920s responded to increased development pressures and automobile traffic. In 1921, Westfield's electric system was extended to the Little River, Wyben, and Mundale areas, and the Southwick and Southampton Highway (MA Route 10) was completed. Main Street was repaved, bridges at Main Street, Pochassic Street, Mundale, and Shaker Village were repaired, and all steel bridges painted. By 1924, Westfield had 118 miles of roads and streets. Only two miles were paved, and fifteen miles were macadamized (not counting state roads).

In 1920, Westfield's new mayor faced a severe challenge. By the end of World War I, the industries that had fostered Westfield's growth were struggling to survive. The coming of the automobile made the whip industry obsolete. Although Westfield's City Directory still listed 46 whip makers and whip-related businesses, 27 of them were branches of the United States Whip Company; the total number of independent whip makers was about half of what it had been 40 years earlier. By 1928, production had decreased to about two million whips a year, a fraction of what it had been before the coming of the automobile. Ten years later, only seven whip makers remained in business.

By the fall of 1921, about 15% of Westfield's male population was unemployed. Industrial activity through the 1920s was mixed, as manufacturers throughout New England began to feel pressure from companies taking advantage of cheaper, non-union labor in the South. Some companies moved South; others closed altogether. Referring to the recent "industrial depression," in January 1922, Mayor Searle noted that revenues from water bills had fallen off because the consumption of water had declined with the closing of some factories. The city almoner commented that the industrial depression had strained the poor relief resources, with 565 persons needing assistance due to unemployment.

In 1927, a national building slowdown affected local manufacturers and the plants began to reduce work weeks and layoff workers. By 1930, with the onset of the Great Depression, more than 800 men were out of work in Westfield. City Almoner Morrell H. Moore noted that providing relief to the unemployed was growing more and more difficult as cases became more numerous.

In March 1931, a policy was established to require men to do some work in exchange for receiving relief funds. The city revived its Unemployment Commission with highway and forestry projects. However, ever-decreasing tax revenues could not support the proposed public works projects. By 1931, Westfield hovered on the brink of bankruptcy, having spent its reserves on highway projects to relieve the unemployment problem. Two thousand residents were on relief. As residents and businesses failed, their taxes went unpaid. There was no money for new expenditures and the city went into receivership.

Major floods in 1936 and 1938 hit Westfield and the rest of Hampden County hard. While the rising Westfield River closed the Great River Bridge in both cases, damage along Elm Street appears to have been limited. High winds in the 1938 hurricane smashed plate-glass windows in Elm Street businesses and knocked down power lines and telephone poles. The worst flooding occurred to the east of the central business district, along Meadow Street and the eastern end of Main Street, to the west along upper Franklin Street, and on the north side of the river in the lower Union Street area. The 1936 flood washed out the Westfield River dam at the Great River Bridge, and it was never replaced. The Sanford Whip Factory narrowly escaped serious damage.

Like most communities, Westfield made a turnaround with the coming of World War II. The war years brought some jobs back to town, although a few businesses had to cut production because they could not get materials. The surplus of workers quickly became a shortage. Stanley Home Products expanded, taking over the former Textile Manufacturing Company plant on North Elm Street; bicycle manufacturer Columbia Manufacturing shifted to bomb-making and won an Army-Navy E Award for its war production, an accomplishment quickly repeated by American Abrasive. United States Whip Company (U.S. Line Company) went from making fishing lines to producing nylon and silk cord for parachutes and silk and nylon surgical sutures.

After the war, Westfield's manufacturing sector seemed diverse and prosperous. Producers of boilers, radiators, bicycles, and paper products were still going strong, as were textile and thread manufacturers. Other products included brushes, mops, fish lines, celluloid products, brick, boxes, grinding wheels and abrasives, hardware, greeting cards, precision tools, plumbing supplies, electrical motors, and even prefabricated houses. Brick, lumber, and woodworking products were also being made, and the city's marble quarries were still in business.

Decline of Whip Manufacturing

In the first years of the 20^th Century, whip-making was still a large concern in Westfield. The automobile was regarded as a passing fad and had not yet overtaken the horse and buggy as America's primary mode of transportation. In 1902, 62 factories were making 20 million whips a year. By 1911, Westfield was making about 85% of the world's whips, with nearly half of that production dominated by the United States Whip Company. The New England Whip Company followed in second place.

By 1919, the United States Whip Company alone accounted for 85% of the world's production, with an output of 30,000 whips per day, and the town's entire production amounted to 99% of the whips made in the world. The United States Whip Company not only owned most of the Westfield factories, but also a plant in Sidney, OH. The company continued to absorb smaller competitors. At its peak, United States Whip had consolidated American Whip Company, Bay State Whip Company, Buckeye Whip Company, Clark & Noyes Company, Coburn Whip Company, Consolidated Whip Company, Continental Whip Company, Cook & Parker, Cowles & Horan Whip Company, Donovan Brothers, Independent Whip Company, Lay Whip Company, Massasoit Whip Company, James H. Miliken & Son, National Whip Company, Peck & Whipple Company, Sanford Whip Company, Searle Whip Company, Smith-Lockwood Manufacturing Company, Specialty Whip Company, Tipp Whip Company, Underwood Whip Company, Washington Whip Company, Westfield Whip Company, Geo. E. Whipple Company, Woodbury Whip Company, and the World Whip Company.

By the 1910s, electricity began to supplant steam as a source of power for Westfield's whip factories. The New England Whip Company, one of the few competitors to United States Whip that had not yet been assimilated, used electrical power exclusively by 1911. The Standard Whip Company, founded in 1865, was another manufacturer that had managed to remain independent. In 1910, it built a new factory across Elm Street from the old Sanford Whip facility, with J. C. McCarthy as its president and general manager and Charles J. Rooney as treasurer and sales manager.

In 1910, the Franklin Whip Company was formed by John T. Sullivan and Mary A. Rickey, operating from a facility on Meadow Street, not far from Donovan Brothers' Elm Street plant. Mary Rickey headed the company for nearly ten years, an unusual job for a woman at that time. In 1919, Franklin Whip closed and Rickey went to work for Standard Whip at 278 Elm Street, rising from forewoman to president of the company in five years.

While its competitors struggled and failed in the face of the new automobile industry, the Independent Whip Company regrouped and turned the change to its advantage, manufacturing automobile accessories from spark plugs and tools to lamps and veneers. The United States Whip Company also found ways to apply whip-making technology to other fields.

In 1923, it established the U.S. Line Company, manufacturing fishing lines, applying braiding techniques to finely spun silk instead of rawhide. A few years later the company set up the United States Golf Manufacturing Company, which made golf equipment until about 1934. Warren Thread Company, which had made threads for winding whip stocks, began making thread for automobile upholstery. By 1926, only thirty-seven Westfield residents were still employed at whip making. By 1950, there was only one whip manufacturer left in the city.

One of the properties disposed of by the United States Whip Company was the Donovan Brothers Leather Plant (the old Sanford Whip Company building) at 330 Elm Street. In 1924, after the United States Whip Company's directors voted that the Donovan building was no longer needed, the plant was sold to Standard Whip Company. Standard Whip had been easing itself out of the whip business for several years. In 1915, the company set up the Advance Whip and Novelty Company as a subsidiary, making novelties rather than whips.

By 1924, Standard Whip had ceased whip making entirely and was manufacturing novelties under its own name and under the names of Advance Whip and Novelty Company and Bay State Novelty Company. For the next seventy years, the company would produce party favors, novelties for carnivals, fairs, and bingo games, and other amusement paraphernalia.

Shortly after the sale, Standard Whip forewoman Mary A. Rickey became company president. Secretary/treasurer was Charles Rooney (d. 1936), while the company's clerk was Elizabeth Rooney (probably Charles's daughter). Elizabeth succeeded her father as treasurer upon his death in 1936 and remained in that position until she moved away in 1946. Donovan Brothers moved to the United States Whip Company's headquarters at 24 Main Street. Standard Whip eventually dropped both the Standard and Bay State names and became known as Advance Whip and Novelty Company until the business folded in 2000.

In the 1940s, whip manufacturing even made a small-scale comeback when former mayor and newspaperman Harold Martin opened the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company at 44 Court Street in 1945, later moving to the former A. G. Barnes/Cargil, Cleveland & Calne Whip Company factory at 360 Elm Street. Upon taking over the Cargil business, Martin discovered more than one million dollars in back orders, giving him hope that he could continue in the whip industry, now as a specialty product for horsemen and women and the cattle industry, rather than a commonplace transportation and agricultural accessory. Martin drew upon the accumulated experience of many of Westfield's old-time whip makers and improved upon it by streamlining the manufacturing process, and eventually adopting synthetics like fiberglass and nylon. By 1948, the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company had no competitors left in town.

Westfield's major manufacturers in the 1950s included 19th-century carryovers like Advance Whip & Novelty Company, Foster Machine Company (textile machinery), John S. Lane & Sons (gravel), H. B. Smith, United States Whip (d.b.a. U.S. Line Company), Vitrified Wheel Company, and W. Warren Thread Works (now making sewing threads). Some of the major industrial players that had been added to the mix in the previous fifty years included American Abrasive, Kellogg Brush Manufacturing, Strathmore Paper, Old Colony Envelope, Stanley Home Products, Sterling Radiator, and Stevens Paper. However, the city lost a major employer when Stanley Home Products moved to Easthampton in 1947, leaving only its business offices in Westfield.

Recent history (since 1958)

Westfield's commercial sector managed to hold on through the 1950s and 1960s. In 1952, manufacturing was still the community's leading employer, with about 59% of residents working in factories.

In 1963, the city adopted a new Master Plan, which emphasized continuing industrial growth. The city's residents were doing fairly well compared to their neighbors; the employment rate and median income were both higher than in the nearby cities of Chicopee, Springfield, and Holyoke. The consultant who prepared the report was impressed by the city's industrial stability, commenting, "It has preserved itself as a city of permanent residents engaged in industries that are a part of the city, not thrust upon it by world situations".

The Master Plan emphasized protecting and upgrading existing industries, attracting new manufacturers, and increasing the city's retail sector. The commercial corridor along Elm Street was slated for designation as a business zone, with industrial uses prohibited. Although existing manufacturers in the central business district would be grandfathered, the zoning recommended in the Master Plan (and eventually adopted by the city) prohibited any new industrial development there. Westfield's downtown was, however, spared the wholesale demolition typical of urban renewal plans of the 1960s.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the city's population jumped more than 5,000 residents each decade, going from 20,962 in 1950 to 26,302 in 1960, to 31,433 in 1970, to 36,465 in 1980. The increase appears to have been due to a combination of new immigrants and suburban transplants from surrounding communities, rather than just from an increase in the birth rate. The 1963 Master Plan noted that nearly half of the 1950-1960 population growth had been from in-migration, and the trend continued through the next few decades. Nearly a tenth of city's residents were foreign-born, with Polish immigrants making up about a third of this number and the city's Puerto Rican population forming a significant new immigrant community.

However, Westfield's historic downtown continues to struggle in the face of suburban commercial development. Since the 1970s, city planners have targeted the downtown area for redevelopment. Downtown renovation projects resulted in the installation of brick sidewalks and Victorian-style street lamps and the creation of municipal parking lots to the rear of Elm Street business buildings. Kane Park, across the street from the Sanford Whip Factory, was upgraded in 1988 with new benches and in 2000 received a new planter and landscaping.

Industry still makes up a large proportion of the city's business sector. Most new industrial and commercial activity has taken place away from the city's historic urban core. New high-technology manufacturers, along with a few surviving 19th-century businesses, like Columbia Manufacturing, International Paper (formerly Southworth Paper), Savage Arms, and U.S. Line Company make up Westfield's present industrial community.

Relics of the Whip Industry

A series of arson fires in August of 1989 damaged the offices of the state-owned Westfield Veterans' Pool on Smith Avenue, the Day Lumber Company on South Broad Street, and the first floor of the Advance Whip and Novelty Company. The Whip Company building suffered $85,000 worth of damage. (The present aluminum windows on the front facade and the aluminum entry porch with open scrollwork pillars were probably part of the 1989 repairs.) In 2000, the Advance Whip and Novelty Company closed, and the building was sold to JAV Family Limited Partnership.

The building was again threatened by fire in 2003, when arsonists burned down the vacant Vitrified Wheel factory to the rear of the Advance Whip and Novelty building. (Vitrified Wheel had been replaced by the Waltham Grinding Wheel Company, which had closed in 1992.) While a nearby house was destroyed by the blaze, the Advance Whip and Novelty building was not damaged.

In 2001, the Community Development Corporation began to look at the area around the Advance Whip Company property as part of a proposed riverfront revitalization district. A rail trail and river walkway would provide green space, while it was proposed that the Advance Whip and Novelty Company Building be made into a cultural center and the nearby Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company become a museum. An open air market, an amphitheater, and riverside cafe were also proposed.

JAV Family Limited Partnership held the Advance Whip and Novelty Company property for five years before transferring it to Domus, Inc. (a nonprofit development corporation) in 2005. The Domus proposal for the Advance Whip and Novelty Company building includes twenty-one units of housing, with fifteen single-room occupancy units and six one-bedroom apartments, to provide much-needed housing for homeless, disabled, and low-income residents, all identified as underserved in the city's recent five-year action plan.

Building Description

The Sanford Whip Factory building (330 Elm Street) is a 34-story, brick industrial building that housed one of the factories that gave Westfield its nickname of "The Whip City."

The City of Westfield is located in southwestern Massachusetts about nine miles west of Springfield and nine miles north of the Connecticut border. The Berkshire foothills form the city's western border. The Westfield River cuts a southeasterly channel through these mountains, entering Westfield at the foot of Mount Tekoa in Montgomery. Within the Westfield city limits, the terrain is less steeply sloped, and the river provides a broad floodplain about two to three miles in width.

The East Mountain Range, a southerly extension of the Holyoke Range, marks the city's eastern border, where the Westfield River cuts just north of Proven Mountain before heading east through Agawam and West Springfield toward the Connecticut River. The tracks of the Boston & Albany Railroad parallel the river throughout its course. The Little River, which runs down from Cobble Mountain in Granville on Westfield's western border, flows west to meet the Westfield in a broad Y. Westfield's historic town center is concentrated between the branches of this Y.

South of the Westfield River is the city's central business district, a collection of 19th- and 20th-century masonry commercial buildings that line Elm Street. At the southern end of downtown, the historic town common, or Westfield Green, serves as one focal point. At the north end, Kane Park, a small, triangular, landscaped green marks the northern end of the downtown, just before Elm Street crosses the Westfield River.

The north end of Elm Street between the railroad overpass and the Westfield River bridge is less densely developed than the downtown core. Elm Street and Meadow Street meet at Kane Park, which forms a small oasis of landscaped greenery with planters and benches. The Romanesque Revival Holy Trinity Church, parish buildings, and school on the east side of the street serve as a visual anchor for this end of Elm Street. The area has a mix of small-scale, one-story commercial buildings, older homes with storefront additions, larger 19th-century commercial blocks, and 19th-century industrial buildings like the Sanford Whip Factory (330 Elm Street) and the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company building (360 Elm Street).

The Sanford Street Whip Factory is located on the west side of Elm Street, across from Kane Park and Holy Trinity Church. The building is set slightly back on its lot, with a small front lawn and concrete walk leading to the front door. To the north, it is closely abutted by a house with a projecting one-story storefront addition. To the south, a dirt driveway leads to the rear of the property, which is overgrown with vegetation. An open lot to the rear (the site of the Vitrified Wheel Company, which was destroyed by fire in 2003) separates the property from the railroad tracks.

The Sanford Whip Factory is a 3½-story structure of dark red brick laid in common bond with a front-gabled slate roof. The only decorative elements are segmentally arched Italianate window caps, plain sandstone window sills, and a denticulated cornice with returns on the gable ends. The window hoods consist of double rows of header bricks corbelled slightly over the windows; triple rows of header bricks laid in a similar fashion outline the tops of the doors.

The front (east) and rear (west) facades are four bays wide (35 feet); the side facades are 130 feet long, with 17 bays of regularly arranged windows and doors. The front facade has aluminum 1/1 windows that were probably installed in the course of repairs made after a 1989 fire. Concrete steps lead to the entry porch. The glass and metal front door and the aluminum entry porch with open scrollwork pillars sheltering it were probably also part of the 1989 repairs. (The earlier porch shown in a 1978 photograph had square Tuscan pillars supporting a flat-roofed entry porch with wide entablature. The porch is similar to one shown in an 1886 engraving of the factory published in Leading Industries of Massachusetts.)

The south (side) facade has 17 bays of windows and doors. Most of the windows are boarded or bricked up, but a few wooden 2/2 and 1/1 sash remain intact. The length of the windows decreases from the first floor to the third. All first-, second-, and third-floor windows are crowned by the Italianate segmental arches described earlier. Most of the cellar windows have the same treatment; a few have segmental arches set flush to the wall surface rather than in relief. Most of the cellar windows have been bricked in. Iron star-shaped tie rod plates are visible at the second- and third-floor levels. At the fifth and eighth bays, doors open onto the first-floor level. The fifth-bay door is a wide opening with a stone sill and double doors. The eighth-bay door is narrower and has been sealed up with concrete block. At the 12^th bay, there is a concrete loading platform with a shed roof, double doors at each floor level, and the remains of a hoisting beam projecting from the roof. Heavy double doors sheathed with diagonal wood boards open onto each level.

The window placement on the north facade is similar to the south, though there are fewer door openings. Like the south facade, the north side has many of its windows boarded or bricked up, though a few of the 2/2 and 6/6 wooden sash remain. At the 13^th bay is a small, square, brick extension that accommodated water closets on all three floors. A crumbling brick wall extends from the rear of this extension. It appears to have extended only to the first-floor level; it is not clear what it originally enclosed. Openings in the last two bays of this side of the building are not aligned with those of the upper floors. Although now bricked up, they appear to have contained either a double window or a double door.

At the rear (west) facade, most of the windows have been bricked or boarded up. On the first floor level, the original window surrounds are still visible, although the openings have been filled with new brickwork flush to the wall surface. Differences in the brickwork reveal the outline of the sheds that were attached to the rear of the building (removed between 1924 and 1947). A large, newer double door made of plywood opens onto an interior ramp that leads to the basement level.

The front section of the first floor consists of a modern office with a vinyl-tile floor, suspended ceilings, and sheetrock walls that block all the side window openings. Beyond the office is an open factory room with exposed brickwork and heavy wooden structural members. A row of chamfered wooden piers supports the ceiling, and second-floor joists and sub-flooring are visible from below. Wooden floors are heavily worn.

The windows on the first floor run nearly floor-to-ceiling, with no ornamentation; interior window sills are simple flat boards. The heavy exterior double doors on the south side of the building are sheathed in matchboard and appear to be original, or at least fairly early to the building's history. The water closet area on the north wall is divided into two rooms, one of which has been converted for storage. Matchboard wainscoting covers the walls, and paneled wooden doors close the space off from the factory floor. A central stairway leads to upper and lower floors. Next to the center stairwell is a ramp connecting the first and second floors. Newer sheetrock encloses the stairway and ramp at this level.

The second and third floors are similar to the first: open expanses of exposed brick walls and wooden structural elements, with two small water closets on the north side. Sections of the ceiling along the south wall of the second floor are clad in matchboard rather than being exposed. Windows are somewhat shorter than those on the first floor, and most are boarded up. The central stairway is enclosed with matchboard walls and door. On the second floor, a partition wall separates the rear (west) section of the factory room.

A low matchboard wall surrounds the top of the stairway leading to the attic. The attic was once lit by two windows in each end gable; these are now bricked up. Rafters are exposed, and some of the support beams retain brackets that may have once been used for holding whipstock materials. Walls and doors that once surrounded an elevator or dumbwaiter shaft remain intact (including a metal sign prohibiting employees from riding the elevator). The shaft itself has been removed from the lower floors; its outline is visible in a square of newer flooring on each level.

At the basement level, the stairway is enclosed with matchboard walls. Rows of brick and metal columns support the first floor. A ramp leads out to the rear double doors. There is also a set of heavy exterior flush-boarded double doors on the south side.

The building has been vacant for several years. The brickwork needs repointing, and most of the window sash on the side and rear facades are missing completely. While there is some water damage, the building has been secured with plywood, brick, or concrete block closing up many of the openings, which has prevented more severe damage.

South and east elevations

East and north elevations

South and east elevations

West and south elevations

Basement level

1^st floor office area

1^st floor production area

2^nd floor production area

3^rd floor production area

3^rd floor production area

Attic storage area