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Too much data to post from the historical society
https://virginiahistory.org/research/research-resources/finding-aids/craddock-terry-inc
Scope and Content Information
The records found in this collection were acquired by the Virginia Historical Society from several sources. Some were retrieved from old factories and corporate offices, some from former corporate officers or their family members; but all have been united, as the donors intended, in this single collection.
The nature of this acquisition illuminates a common problem for archivists: we collect and describe what has survived or what has been designated for our institution, so the collection by nature could never be considered by any means complete in revealing the scope and extent of the company's operations through time. The early records are the most detailed, with series providing remarkable glimpses into company operations (and the American and Southern economies) during the company's founding years but especially during the 1920s and 1930s. Financial and operational records are strong for the 1940s and 1950s, while marketing and sales records appear strongest in the 1950s and 1960s. Piecing together the company's final years is problematic from the surviving records, because comparatively few of them are found here. But what is available provides remarkable resources for study of the company, the local and national economy, labor history, and the rise of worker benefits programs.
Organization
The collection is divided into series, which attempt to trace the key aspects of a very large national manufacturing and sales operation. By dividing the records along the lines of the series below, it is possible both to grasp the larger corporate picture through the history of the company, as well as to focus on its critical operations at various points in time. Series include: Series 1. Corporate records, Series 2. Corporate finance, Series 3. Corporate officers, Series 4. Financial records, Series 5. Employee records, Series 6. Acquisitions and divisions, Series 7. Craddock-Terry Foundation, Inc., and Series 8. Historical materials.
Biographical/Historical Information
The century-long history of Craddock-Terry Company, once the largest employer in Lynchburg, Virginia, offers countless opportunities to study the efforts of a major national business to achieve, maintain, even regain stature as a leader in its particular realm of the American economy. Beginning with what might rightfully be described as a meteoric rise to influential corporate status, evidenced by stout economic success and remarkable expansion in the early years of the twentieth century, the firm thereafter faced challenge after challenge in grappling with the implications and effects of that rapid-fire rise to prominence and expectation, both within and outside of Virginia. The attempts of its leaders, individually and collectively, constantly to push the company forward and, perhaps even more significantly, to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving, ever-changing American economy and consumer base, are captured in remarkable detail in this collection.
Halifax County, Virginia, native John Wimbish Craddock came to Lynchurg in the 1880s and joined with a brother, Abram P. Craddock, and with another Halifax County man, Thaddeus McGhee Terry, to form Craddock, Terry & Company, wholesalers, or "jobbers," of boots, shoes, and rubber overshoes. Within ten years, December 1898, the limited partnership was incorporated under the laws of Virginia as the Craddock-Terry Company, with the election of its first officers a year later just as the nineteenth century was coming to a close. Within two more years the company was building its first factory (Southland in Lynchburg) and turning to the manufacture of women's, misses, and children's shoes. By the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century a second factory (West End) was in operation and the company had expanded its production to men's, young men's, and boy's shoes. A very large plant was taken over in 1923 to house the company's central manufacturing operations in Lynchburg (Fort Hill). By this time, the company had become known for its lines of comparatively conservative and well-made shoes, and a number of brand names associated with Craddock-Terry (McKay, Natural Bridge, Billiken), had become well established in the American marketplace.
The relative quick success of the firm lead the company to look to expansion through the absorption of competitive companies, leading to the acquisition of the George D. Witt Shoe Company in 1911, although continuing its operations under the Witt name. Three years later Craddock-Terry acquired the Burrow, Jones & Dyer Shoe Company and the Kaut-Reith Shoe Company, both of St. Louis, combined and re-christened them as the McElroy-Sloan Shoe Company, and operated this venture as its "Western Department." The company built two factories in St. Louis and acquired two others, significantly expanding its manufacturing operations and its national market presence. Another major acquisition followed in 1920: Harsh Chapline Shoe Company of Milwaukee, with a tannery and factory making Lion Brand work shoes.
By 1924, Craddock-Terry in all its divisions boasted a capacity for daily output of 40,000 pairs of shoes and was shipping over $19,000,000 worth of merchandize annually to retailers and other jobbing houses. But shortly the company became a victim of its own success. As company officers later observed, the advent of automobiles, good roads and chain stores in easy proximity to a wide customer base not only changed purchasing practices, but also encouraged a demand among customers for more diverse lines of products with a broader range of price options. The company was ill-prepared to meet these new challenges. An attempt to increase distribution by opening a jobbing house in Baltimore did not ultimately come at the most opportune time.
By the late 1920s the company was losing large amounts of money, and this was only exacerbated by the 1929 Crash and the ensuing economic depression. In 1933 company executives had determined to consolidate all manufacturing operations to their most productive, strategically placed plants, in Lynchburg, and close the St. Louis and Milwaukee operations. This took some time to accomplish. In the meantime, at the prompting of stockholders and a firm hired to assess the company's corporate operations, officers began the development of a capital restructuring plan, which was accomplished with the transfer of assets to the Craddock-Terry Shoe Corporation in 1939 and a substantial issuance of stock in this new entity. This marked a fresh start for the company, frankly aided by government contracts for footware for American armed forces during World War II and by the opportunity to get out from under a withering corporate debt by the pay-off of a series of bank loans. The company also redesigned its marketing operations, did away with the old Craddock-Terry Company General Line Division and the George D. Witt Company, and created new divisions for men's and women's lines, for some of its most popular lines, Natural Bridge and Masterbilt, and for the affordable line emanating from its Universal Shoe Manufacturing Company (which had been created in the 1920s to sell to larger stores and buyers on special purchase terms).
The company's subsequent history reflected similar challenges with style changes, marketing and purchasing trends, and production, inventory and distribution. The 1950s and 1960s saw the construction of new factories in places like Halifax and Lawrenceville, the purchase of property along the new expressway in Lynchburg for a corporate headquarters, and the institution of a pension plan for long-term employees. The modernization of plants followed, and as late as the 1970s the company was still looking to expand manufacturing operations, as well as creating a mail order division. But by the last decades of the twentieth century, the company, like so many American manufacturers, was facing a flood of foreign imports and had lost so much of its market share that continuation of the venture was proving untenable. Still, Craddock-Terry had left an indelible mark on its industry, and perhaps more importantly, on the economic history of Lynchburg and its people.
