The Plymouth Cordage Company was a rope making company located in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

History

The company, founded in 1824, had a large factory located on the Plymouth waterfront. By the late 19th century, the Plymouth Cordage Company had become the largest manufacturer of

rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly ...

and

twine Twine is a strong Thread (yarn), thread, light String (cord), string or cord composed of two or more thinner strands twisted, and then twisted together (Plying, plied). The strands are plied in the opposite direction to that of their twist, whic ...

in the world. The company specialized in ship rigging, and was chosen among other competitors in the early 1900s to manufacture the rope used on the . The company's twine, Plymouth binder twine, popular among farmers, was the inspiration for the naming of the ''

'' brand of automobiles first produced in 1928. In the 1910s, its mill was the world's largest of its kind. The Plymouth Cordage Company served as the largest employer in Plymouth for over 100 years. It went out of business in 1964 after over 140 years of continuous operation. By the early-1960s, it had bought all the materials needed for production, had no debt and a lot of cash and was bought out by the Columbian Rope Company in 1965. In January 1916, the company was seeing increased business in their busiest season, preparing twine for both local harvest and foreign countries at war. When wages stayed stagnant despite rising costs of living, Cordage workers, despite not being unionized, spontaneously walked out in the company's first strike, halting company-wide production. Local anarchists from Boston traveled to support the strike, including

Luigi Galleani Luigi Galleani (; 1861–1931) was an Italian anarchist active in the United States from 1901 to 1919. He is best known for his enthusiastic advocacy of "propaganda of the deed", i.e. the use of violence to eliminate those he viewed as tyrants ...

and

Bartolomeo Vanzetti Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...

, who formerly worked at the factory and later blamed his staunch participation in the strike for being blacklisted in the region. Historians contest that the strike had such an effect on workers. After a month-long closure, the factory offered a modest increase in wages below the strike demand, to which the workers accepted and returned. Upton Sinclair's historical novel "Boston" has several chapters devoted to the company when his elderly heroine goes to work for the factory. Plymouth Cordage also operated a factory in

Welland, Ontario Welland is a city in the Regional Municipality of Niagara in Southern Ontario, Canada. As of 2021, it had a population of 55,750. The city is in the centre of Niagara and located within a half-hour driving distance to Niagara Falls, Niagara-on ...

. A detailed history of Welland operations can be found at the Welland Public Library Local History site.

Cordage Commerce Center

In modern times, the Cordage factory property in North Plymouth has been turned into a large retail and office center. The building, now known as ''Cordage Commerce Center'', houses the

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...

station, a terminus for the Old Colony Line. The factory also contains several restaurants, offices, and stores.

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

currently offers some classes in a wing of the building. The largest retailer is Mill Stores, which has now been closed. There was previously a

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

located on the property, but it closed in 2005 and relocated to

Colony Place This is a list of current and former notable shopping malls and shopping centers in the United States of America. Alabama * Auburn Mall – Auburn (1973–present) * Bridge Street Town Centre – Huntsville (2007–present) * Brookwood V ...

, also in Plymouth. In 2012, much of the former plant was demolished due to deterioration related to the quick construction of the facility in 1899. Plans for the site include the eventual building of condominiums.

References

Bibliography

External links

Cordage Commerce Center Official SiteDemolition of Plymouth Cordage Company buildingsPlymouth Cordage Company records
at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School {{Authority control Plymouth, Massachusetts Ropework Defunct manufacturing companies based in Massachusetts