Clauss Cutlery is a

cutlery Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffie ...

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

owned by the

Acme United Corporation Acme United Corporation is a supplier of cutting, measuring and safety products for the school, home, office, hardware and industrial markets. The company was organized as a partnership in 1867 and incorporated in 1873 under the laws of the State ...

since 2004. It was founded as Elyria Shear Works in 1877 by John and Henrie Clauss in

Elyria Elyria may refer to: *Elyria, Ohio Elyria ( ) is a city in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan statistical area and the county seat of Lorain County, Ohio, Lorain County, Ohio, United States, located at the forks of the Black River (Ohio), Black ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. At one time the company was the largest manufacturer of

scissors Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles (bows) opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutti ...

and shears in the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

History

1877–1918

The two brothers John and Henrie Clauss, of German origin, started Elyria Shear Works from a one-room building in Elyria, Ohio. Retrieved on June 28, 2009. Together with five employees, they began manufacturing scissors, shears,

straight razor A straight razor is a razor with a blade that can fold into its handle. They are also called open razors and cut-throat razors. The predecessors of the modern straight razors include bronze razors, with cutting edges and fixed handles, produced b ...

s and

serrated Serration is a saw-like appearance or a row of sharp or tooth-like projections. A serrated cutting edge has many small points of contact with the material being cut. By having less contact area than a smooth blade or other edge, the applied p ...

kitchen A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...

knives A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...

. Retrieved on July 2, 2009. In the early 1880s, with his shear business prospering, John Clauss planned a major

expansion Expansion may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''L'Expansion'', a French monthly business magazine * ''Expansion'' (album), by American jazz pianist Dave Burrell, released in 2004 * ''Expansions'' (McCoy Tyner album), 1970 * ''Expansio ...

. In August 1887, he moved the company to Fremont, Ohio, to be near an accessible, abundant supply of

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

which had recently been discovered. The gas was ideally suited to fuel the

furnace A furnace is a structure in which heat is produced with the help of combustion. Furnace may also refer to: Appliances Buildings * Furnace (central heating): a furnace , or a heater or boiler , used to generate heat for buildings * Boiler, used t ...

s for the company's

forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...

s and

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

. Clauss erected a two- stories-high

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

at the corner of North Buchanan Street and Pine Street. Within one year, the company was producing 3,000 pairs of shears and scissors a day. On January 17, 1889,

disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

struck as the plant was completely destroyed by fire, causing 125 employees to lose their jobs. However, in less than four months, Clauss built a new plant and was back in full operation. Retrieved on July 1, 2009. The new four-story brick building at the corner of State Street and Sandusky Avenue was the largest shear factory in the world at that moment. Clauss also used this opportunity to change the company's name to Clauss Shear Company.

1919–1945

In 1919, Clauss Shear

merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

with Henkel Company, also from Fremont, to create Henkel–Clauss Company. Henkel Company was founded in 1906 to manufacture

nail file A nail file is a tool used to gently grind down and shape the edges of nails. They are often used in manicures and pedicures after the nail has been trimmed using appropriate nail clippers. Nail files may either be emery boards, ceramic, glass, ...

s, knives, shears and razors. Retrieved on July 4, 2009. The Henkel–Clauss merger created a company with over 1,000 employees and had the largest

payroll A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...

in the United States at that time. John Clauss didn't live long to enjoy that success as he died later that year. In the early 1920s the cutlery business faced a serious setback as Germany was permitted to

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

shears and scissors

duty-free A duty-free shop (or store) is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, w ...

to the United States. The idea behind this was to help Germany pay back its World War I debts. As a consequence, German shears sold at half the price of American made shears. Despite the fierce German competition, Fremont counted twenty-five cutlery businesses and was known as the "Cutlery Center of the World".

1946–1966

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Henkel–Clauss was unable to compete with European firms producing household scissors and other simple products because

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remuner ...

s were much lower in Europe. As a result, the company shifted focus to industrial scissors. Henkel–Clauss continued to struggle as much of its

sales revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...

came from declining industries or businesses where

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

was reducing the need for scissors. In 1954 the corporate name was changed to Clauss Cutlery Company to eliminate the confusion with the German cutlery firm J.A. Henckels.

1967–2004

In 1967 Clauss was taken over by Alco Standard Corporation. Alco Standard, which later divested its manufacturing companies to create Alco Industries, integrated Clauss into its existing structure to manufacture tools for industrial

niche market A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it ...

s. For instance, Clauss made

surgical scissors Surgical scissors are scissors specially manufactured as surgical instruments, typically used for cutting sutures, dressings, and cutting and dissecting biological tissue. Surgical scissors are usually made of surgical steel. Some have tungsten c ...

for eye operations, heavy-duty metal cutting shears,

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, a ...

shears for gutting

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

s, and specialty items such as anti-

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

, anti-

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particle ...

tweezers Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history. ...

for the

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

industry. Retrieved on June 30, 2009. Clauss had approximately 100 employees and produced about $18 million in annual revenues in the late 1980s, but profits continued to decline. In May 2004, Acme United Corporation acquired the Clauss

inventory Inventory (American English) or stock (British English) refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying the shap ...

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...

s and

brand names A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

from Alco Industries for approximately $500,000.

2005–present

The Clauss business was immediately integrated into Acme United's existing operations. Since then, the number of Clauss products has continued to expand. In 2006 and 2007 the company brought sewing shears,

utility knives A utility knife is any type of knife used for general manual work purposes.Peterson, Harold L., ''Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World'', London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd., , p. 1 Such knives were originally fixed-blade knives with du ...

, chef shears, hobby knives and a

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

-bonded, spring-assisted

pruner Pruning shears, also called hand pruners (in American English), or secateurs (in British English), are a type of scissors for use on plants. They are strong enough to prune hard branches of trees and shrubs, sometimes up to two centimetres thi ...

to market. In 2008, Clauss introduced the SpeedPak utility knife and its replaceable cartridges with ten titanium blades, having won a

Good Design Award In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

from the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design in 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2011. Early 2013, Clauss launched a family of titanium-bonded, non-stick putty knives that make use of a coating to protect the tools from rust and allow easier application of putty. More recently, Clauss introduced an workbench shear with titanium-bonded blades, with an integrated box cutter and

bottle opener A bottle opener is a device that enables the removal of metal bottle caps from glass bottles. More generally, it might be thought to include corkscrews used to remove cork or plastic stoppers from wine bottles. A metal bottle cap is affixed t ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Knife manufacturing companies Tool brands 1877 establishments in Ohio Tool manufacturing companies of the United States 2004 mergers and acquisitions