The Scranton Button Company was a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

, founded in

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

, in 1885. For much of its early history it was controlled by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

immigrant William Connell (September 10, 1827 – March 21, 1909). Connell's family moved to Scranton when he was a small child, and at the age of 7 he left school to work in the coal industry to help support his family. With time he moved up to supervisory positions and became rich enough to buy the company when its charter expired, and Connell became an influential Scranton businessman, serving on several boards of directors. He purchased the Scranton Button Company shortly after its founding. Besides

button A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, ...

s, the company manufactured parts for

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

s and advertising novelties. By 1915, the company was pressing 3 million buttons per day. Since many of the buttons were made out of

shellac Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and ...

, the company had the ability to work with this material and in the 1920s it branched out from making buttons into pressing

phonograph record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...

s out of the same material. It offered full-service record production to any retailer that desired its own label. In 1924, it bought

Emerson Records Emerson Records was an American record company and label created by Victor Emerson in 1915. Victor Hugo Emerson was the chief recording engineer at Columbia Records. In 1914 he left the company, created the Emerson Phonograph Company, and then ...

and in July 1929 it merged with Regal Records,

Cameo Records Cameo Records was an American record label that flourished in the 1920s. It was owned by the Cameo Record Corporation in New York City. Cameo released a disc by Lucille Hegamin every two months from 1921 to 1926. Cameo records are also noted ...

Banner Records Banner Records was an American record company and label in the 1920s and 1930s. It was created primarily for the S.S. Kresge Company, though it was employed as a budget label in other discount stores. History Banner was formed in January 1922 as ...

and the US branch of

Pathé Records Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s. Early years The Pathé record business was founded by brothers Charles and Émile Pathé, ...

to form the

American Record Corporation American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company. Overview ARC was created in January 1929 by Louis G. Sylvester, president of Scran ...

. From 1929-on, Scranton pressed Brunswick, Melotone, Perfect,

Banner A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...

, Regal,

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

, Conqueror,

Vocalion Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

and other ARC labels. (Even though Columbia was bought by ARC in 1934, Columbia records were pressed at Columbia's Bridgeport, CT. plant.) The Scranton plant was acquired in 1946 by

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...

. Though some sources have asserted that Capitol closed the factory in 1970, the label continued to operate the plant until July 1973 and then sold it that November to a

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

firm, North American Music Industries,"Scranton Record Plant Sold." Reading Eagle, Nov. 20, 1973, p. 20.
/ref> which kept the plant in business until its final closure around 1980.

References

{{reflist Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania Manufacturing companies established in 1885 Scranton, Pennsylvania