Clarence Goldammer

I stumbled across a reference to a Clarence Goldammer while paging through a 1951 Geuder & Paeschke employee newsletter, regarding a company-wide fishing contest.  The Musky category was won by a Clarence L. Goldammer, with fish weighing 8 lbs, caught on Otter Lake in Wisconsin. The Goldammer name is familiar to Wisconsin fishing lure collectors, as he produced a musky lure in the 1950's timeframe (the bait was somewhat similar to the better-known Roberts Mud Puppy). Apparently Clarence was a sales manager at Geuder Paeschke.

New catalogs

Here are cover shots of two new catalogs I was able to view (these were fishing-only leaflets, from 1908 and 1909).

New Addition

I purchased this bucket earlier in the week from a visitor to this website.  It is a Cream City Novelty minnow float in the light green color.  Thanks much!  If you have Cream City fishing tackle for sale please contact me at kevincoombe@gmail.com.

Company History

Geuder & Paeschke was founded on January 2, 1880 in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  The founders were William Geuder and his brother-in-law, Charles Paeschke.  Geuder was born in Milwaukee in 1852, the son of tinsmith George Geuder (who was trained by his father in Germany). William married Charles sister Emma Paeschke in 1876,  and upon his father's death formed the new business venture. Charles was 23 years old, but had worked as a bookkeeper and clerk for over eight years with various Milwaukee firms. The company began operations on 3rd Street (between State and Prairie) in Milwaukee.  It was a modest beginning, located in a two story frame building (the current site of the well-known Mader's German restaurant).  The firm began operations as a tinware factory (or "tin shop"),  with simple equipment consisting of tinners tools, small presses and soldering irons.  The 12 employees were mainly journeyman tinsmiths. According to company lore, the salesman in charge of Milwaukee and surrounding areas (Hugo Voigt) delivered merchandise by oxen when his horses were sick.

The next year (1881) the company moved several blocks southwest (in the fourth ward on Everett Street, between Third and Fourth), to the site later occupied by the old Milwaukee Road depot.  As this point the company was a jobber of the products from other firms, in addition to their own tinware products (which included fly traps, dinner pails, cuspidores, ice water coolers, cake pans, and mailboxes). They moved again later in the year, to the five-story bulding on 254 E. Water Street (shown below).

The initial years were only modestly profitable, and in 1882 the decision was made to relocate to Chicago, which was rapidly becoming the largest hardware market in the midwest (with retailers including Sears, Montgomery Ward, and many other firms on State Street).  The company settled at 29-31 Lake Street, registering as an Illinois Corporation named Geuder & Paeschke Mfg Co.  Officers were William Geuder, President, Chas. A Paeschke, Vice President, and Frank J Frey, Secretary and Treasurer.  Frey was a boyhood friend of Charles Paeschke (from growing up in Fond du Lac),  and was an original stockholder; he became active in management when the company moved to Chicago.  He would later marry Paeschke's sister Flora in 1887.  While the company was only in Illinois for around a year, Geuder & Paeschke maintained a sales office, sample room and warehouse in Chicago until 1943.

Apparently the move to Chicago did not go well, based on the following account (from a relative of William Geuder's):

"Extending the business to Chicago and even Baltimore, at this time, proved to be a mistake.  William was very worried about financial problems.  One day he was standing on a bridge over the Milwaukee River, looking at the water.  His friend George Nunnamacher saw William and said 'What's the matter, Willie? Are you considering suicide?' (His friend was in banking, I believe.) 

"Willie said 'I might as well.  I have so many people depending on me and the business isn't going too well.  I don't know how to raise any money and I'm feeling very down'. "

"Nunnamacher said, 'Let's go to my office, Willie, we're going to fix that right now.' He made a large loan to William, which allowed the company to get back on the track to prosperity.  The idea of extending the company to other cities was dropped and William moved back to Milwaukee with his family again."

Following the disappointing year in Illinois, Geuder & Paeschke returned to Milwaukee in February 1883, this time at 162-164 West Water Street (which would later be the site of the Gimbel's department store).  Products offered included candle molds (as electrical lighting wasn't available for most homes) and various other housewares. The Newhall House Fire of 1883 occurred nearby, when the hotel (said to be the the finest west of New York City) burned to the ground, killing 71 people (circus star Tom Thumb escaped unharmed).

Records show the company incorporated again under the laws of Wisconsin in 1886.  The company began selling "galvanized ware", in the form of washtubs, water pails, ash cans, garbage cans, and similar items; galvanized tubs and buckets were quickly replacing wooden versions of those products.  Also in 1886 the company began offering employees "liability insurance" (an early precursor to workers compensation); the company would later claim to be the first company in the United States to provide employees with insurance against workplace injury.  A 1951 company history claimed: "The original policy was considered of such great historical value by the English company which held it, that it was acquired by them over thirty years ago to be displayed in their London office". Note that the progressive labor movement was very strong in Wisconsin, which later became the first state to mandate comprehensive workers compensation insurance in 1911.

By this point there were 121 employees at Geuder & Paeschke; Milwaukee was said to have 23 tinware companies, employing over 1,000 people.  At an 1889 Board of Directors meeting, the decision was made "to discontinue jobbing after January 1...and do a strictly manufacturing business thereafter. Resolved: to find a party to build a suitable factory..."

The site chosen was a former brickyard, located in the Menominee River Valley.  The brickyard was built in 1836, soon after the Menominee ceded their land to the U.S. Government in 1835. Milwaukee brick soon became known for its bright, creamy color (due to elevated amounts of lime and sulfur in the river valley soil), earning Milwaukee the nickname "Cream City" (an early National League baseball team, the Cream Citys, began play in Milwaukee in 1865).  Geuder & Paeschke adopted the "Cream City" trademark, with the slogan "Cream City Ware Never Disappoints". The large new factory produced an increasing variety of tinware products, such as dairy pails, candle molds, and coffee flasks.  An 1894 city map showed Geuder & Paeschke at the southeast corner of St. Paul and 15th Street (the location above); according to this map the Milwaukee Casket manufacturing facility was directly north, and the with the Cream City Brick company occupying a large parcel to the east.

 By the mid-1890's Milwaukee produced one third of the tinware used in the United States, a large portion of which came from Geuder & Paeschke.  The company had grown into a very significant operation, as evidenced by this 1894 account in Milwaukee's Great Industries:

"The plant of the Geuder & Paeschke Manufacturing Company, at the corner of St. Paul avenue and Fifteenth street, is a perfect bee-hive of industry.  The company manufactures pieced, stamped and japanned tinware, and black and galvanized sheet-iron goods.  The factory of the company is a five-story brick building full of the latest improved machinery for the rapid production of tin and sheet-iron ware of all kinds, and during working hours there is not a busier spot in the city of Milwaukee.  The Geuder & Paeschke Manufacturing Company has an enviable reputation for energy and fair dealing and its future is particularly bright."

One constant source of difficulty for tinware manufacturers was the supply (and price) of tin plate.  Prior to 1904 all tin plate used by Geuder & Paeschke was imported from Wales, as the domestic plate works industry was in its infancy. Various legislation had been passed to help jumpstart domestic production, including the McKinley tarrif of 1890.  This led to a sharp increase in domestic tin prices (from 1 cent to 2.2 cents per pound), only to be undone in 1894 by the Wilson-Gorman tariff law, which reduced the duty down to 1.2 cents.  Somewhat paradoxically this led to an immediate decline in business, as customers deferred orders until the cheaper tinplate became available.  The following excerpt was from the 1895 magazine The Metal Worker:

"The Geuder & Paeschke Mfs. Company, manufacturers of tinware, etc, Milwaukee, Wis., report that they are making preparations for a vigorous campaign in 1895. The tariff agitation having been practically settled for the next few years at least, they believe that business men generally will be justified in expecting a conservative increase on sales, and that in consequence there will be much heavier demands made on manufacturers than have been experienced for some time. The Geuder & Paeschke Mfg. Company, who are in position to give prompt attention to all orders entrusted to them, extend a cordial invitation to the trade at large to avail themselves of their facilities whenever in need of goods in their line."

From a 1955 article in the Milwaukee Sentinel for the company's 75th anniversary:

Fishing tackle appeared in the Cream City catalogs sometime between 1892 and 1896 (see the Cream City Minnow Buckets Overview link to the right). Around this time the company expanded into metal office equipment such as file drawers, steel furniture, etc; the firm had a large contract for office eqiupment from the new Minneapolis Court House and City Hall.  In 1896 this part of the business was sold to the Art Metal Construction Company of Jamestown NY.

In 1898 William Geuder received the republican nomination in the Milwaukee mayoral election, losing to democrat David Rose.  He never ran for elected office again. However a young stamp press operator from the company (Julius Heil) would later become Governor of Wisconsin.

William Geuder died unexpectedly of a stroke in 1903; he was 50 years old.

From the magazine Hardware, 1907:

By 1906 the company had expanded to ten acres of floorspace. 

The company changed its name to Geuder, Paeschke & Frey (or GPF) in 1908.  In 1911 the company began offering enameled ware, which was quickly replacing tinware.

GPF would continue producing metal products for decades, with the company run by descendants of the two founders.  By 1920 GPF was recognized as the largest producer of kitchen utensils in the United States. Over time the product mix shifted from house ware products to include industrial equipment, namely drums and utility cans. In 1935 Geuder Paeschke and Frey produced the first licensed character lunchbox, staring Mickey Mouse.   The contract with Disney did not last long (Disney partnered with Owens of Illinois instead), so this lunchbox is exceedingly rare and valuable (this one is from the Smithsonian collection):





There are various accounts of the company being impacted by labor disputes, a common occurrence is mid twentieth century Milwaukee.  There was a 192 day strike in the fall of 1945 (immediately following the end of world war II). By 1950 GPF employed 500 people in three cities- Milwaukee, Sheboygan and Lebanon, Indiana.

Not surprisingly the old industrial section of Milwaukee has experienced significant decline over the years.  This is 324 N 15th Street today; the company built this property in 1890 and is currently for sale; cream city brick exterior.





This is a more gritty picture of 324 N 15th Street, photo from Flickr.  About the only information I can find today regarding these buildings is from kids who break into creepy old properties for fun.

Sources:
"The Voyagers: A History of Geuders and Paeschkes, 1600-1940", by Julianne Ruetz, 2004
"History of Geuder, Paeschke and Frey", Wisconsin Historical Society
"As We See It; January 1950: January 1880 to January 1950", from the Geuder Paeschke and Frey Company.
Geuder, Paechke and Frey catalogs, 1896, 1904, 1913, and 1915
"Milwaukee's Great Industries", 1894