Part 2 - 1900 The Hoosier Manufacturing Company

[Jan Petroff]

The who's and how's of the Hoosier Cabinet's start are a bit conflicting.

On the youtube video (below) we're led to believe the Hoosier was invented by J.S. McQinn who sold farming supplies. The dates and occupations of the owners of The Hoosier Manufacturing Company aren't jiving for me but we're pushing on.

I see some smart businessmen including J. M. McQuinn joining together to form the company. The stockholders and officers were: President, J. M. Maring (of Muncie); vice-president, T. F. Hart (of Muncie) and secretary and treasurer, J. S. Mc Quinn.

Here's what I found about J.S. McQinn from Biography Of Henry County, Indiana B. F. Bowen 1920.

"The secretary and treasurer, J. S. Mc Quinn, was born in Fayette County, Illinois, and was there reared and educated.

In 1886 he went to Findlay, Ohio, for the purpose of engaging in window glass manufacturing, and remained there for seven years.

In 1894 he went to Albany, Indiana, where in 1896, he organized the Albany State Bank, was elected its cashier and remained in that position for four years. While in the bank his attention was called to the kitchen cabinet and, seeing the fine opportunity open to the person who should take hold of its manufacture, he sold his interest in the bank and concentrated his energies upon the manufacture of this article.

That his judgment at that time was not at fault is attested by the wonderful success, which has attended the enterprise. The growth of the business has far surpassed all expectations and its present relative growth is greater than ever before.

The subject's son, Emmett G. Mc Quinn, is advertising manager and has entire charge of the fieldwork, devoting his entire attention to the details of the business.

Since becoming interested in the enterprise the subject has removed to New Castle and has attained to a high standing among the businessmen of the City.

Fraternally he is a Mason belonging to both the blue lodge and the chapter. He and his son are both men of ripe business experience and have demonstrated their fitness for the positions they occupy as the managers of the enterprise described in the foregoing lines."

picture from http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com 1910 - Hoosier Manufacturing Company

The Hoosier Manufacturing Company was established February 27, 1900. The citizens of New Castle offered the promoters of the enterprise two thousand dollars bonus if they would locate in this city and guarantee to employ twenty-five men eight months each year. This offer, together with the fact that New Castle offered superior shipping facilities, decided them upon this location.

The plant is located in the southern part of the city and consists of two buildings, a main building, built of brick, two stories and a basement, seventy by one hundred and forty-two feet, and a wareroom, sixty by seventy-two feet. A capital of about fifty thousand dollars is invested in the enterprise and forty-five men are employed every working day in the year, the pay-roll and expense for local material amounting to about one thousand dollars a week, all of this money going directly into local circulation. The output of the factory now amounts to nearly two hundred complete kitchen cabinets each week, and sales are made of the article in every state in the Union, and many foreign countries.

Source: images.indianahistory.org via Jan on Pinterest

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"The Hoosier Manufacturing Company stands among the best, not only on account of the amount of business transacted, but also because of the beneficent work it is doing in lightening the burdens of thousands of housewives all over the United States. The company's motto is Steps saved in the kitchen gives woman strength and energy for other things, and in the designing of the article of kitchen furniture which they manufacture they have taken this fact into consideration and have put upon the market the most compact, convenient and best arranged kitchen cabinet ever manufactured."