08 August 2011

"You push it in with your fingers!"

In 1900, Mr. Edwin Moore founded the Company with a capital of $112.60. He rented a room and devoted each afternoon and evening to making push-pins, an article of his own invention which may be briefly described as "a pin with a handle." In the mornings, he sold what he had made the night before. The first sale was one gross of push-pins for $2.00. The next memorable order was for $75.00, and the first "big deal" was a sale of $1,000 to the Eastman Kodak Company. As soon as he was well established, Mr. Moore saw the desirability of advertising. In 1903, his first national advertisement appeared in "The Ladies' Home Journal" at a cost of $168.00. The Company continued to grow, and was incorporated on July 19, 1904, as the "Moore Push-Pin Company." Over the next few years, Mr. Moore invented and patented many other items, such as the picture hangers and map tacks that we still make and sell today. From 1912 through 1977, the Company was located on Berkeley Street in Germantown. Today, the Moore Push-Pin Company occupies a large, well-equipped plant in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. The business is still exclusively devoted to the manufacturing and packaging of "little things." 
Text from the company's website.  Photo from the archives of the Harvard University Library, where you can browse issues of the Ladie's Home Journal, via Centuries of Advice and Advertisements.

3 comments:

  1. I had no idea push pins were invented so long ago. I always learn something neat here.

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  2. Me too. I didn't know it until I blogged it.

    ReplyDelete