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Cleveland, Ohio

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Early Local Industry

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Contents

Livestock

In the 19th century, there was a large dependency on livestock; for food primarily but also for a variety of other products that we might not immediately think of.
In all of the following, flies and vermin must have been a nuisance of a magnitude we folks in modern times can't even begin to comprehend. The odors wafting through the neighborhood were also unwanted. Even in the 1950's, following a truck laden with stockyard bones, hoofs, and blood dripping from the back was pretty sickening -- and this was a vehicle that was traveling at a better rate of speed than a slow moving horsedrawn wagon.


BUTCHERS

Body Part Used: All edible portions

Food for the 19th century resident of Brooklyn Centre was mostly locally produced. A housewife couldn't just run up to the local supermarket, which was still far off in the future. If her husband wasn't able to provide the meat, she had to depend on her neighborhood butcher for her family's protein. In the early years, the butcher obtained his meats from nearby farmers and then later, from stock yards.
Once a cow had been butchered and the meat products removed, what was left still had value to a variety of inter-dependent occupations of Brooklyn Centre such as glue, soap, and fertilizer manufacturers, and tanneries.


TANNERS

Body Part Used: Hides

The hides would be bought up by tanneries who would produce leather goods The leather was then might be bought up by saddle makers for saddles, whips, bridles, harnesses, and large belts for use in machinery, or by shoemakers for shoes, boots, belts, and gloves.
Being a tanner wasn't without its personal discomforts. Tanners suffered from dermatitis and eczema from the chemicals using in the tanning process. The smell in the production of leather was also noxious.


GLUE MANUFACTURERS

Local glue factories were owned and operated by J.L. & H. Stadler and Diebold Mallo.

Body Part Used: Bones

Using a boiling process to extract gelatin, ground-up bones were also useful to glue manufacturers. The resulting gelatin could be used for court-plasters, photography, clarifying beer and wine. (Isinglass, a nearly transparent and odorless glue, was produced from fish bones but was probably not commonly manufactured by the Brooklyn Centre gluemakers.)

Body Part Used: Hide Trimmings

Hide trimmings and bones contain collagens which are useful in glue production. Even scraps of processed leather, once all traces of tannic acid were removed, could be used.
The process involved cleaning the trimmings; soaking them in pits of "milk of lime" for up to three months; rinsing to remove the hair; neutralizing the alkalinity with acids; rinsing again; adding water and heating to 120 degrees. Neighboring properties would have probably found this inbearable stench highly offensive when they were downwind.
Glue, with the addition of urea to keep it in a liquid state longer, was in use by cabinetmakers. Generally speaking, a cabinetmaker would have preferred to use hide glue because of its superior adhesive qualities compared to bone glue.


SOAP MANUFACTURERS

Body Parts Used: Tallow and Fats

Tallow would be rendered from beef or mutton fats to be used in the production of soap. It would then be heated in combination with caustic potash or soda. The potash for hard soaps; the soda for soft. Tallow was a natural by-product of the glue manufacturer.


FERTILIZER MANUFACTURERS

Body Parts Used: Bones and Blood

Bones were used to produce bone meal, ammonia, fertilizers, and phosphorus. Additionally, the lime scum from glue production yielded some components of fertilizer.


Lumber

Trees in the local vicinity were used to build log cabins (and later frame houses), fences, furniture, and even provide the planks used to pave the early road system.
Saw mills had been erected along Big Creek by Philo Scovil and _____???

Suggested Reading

Modern American Tanning, a compendium of articles by various authors, 1910. Simply viewing the index in this book will give you an appreciation for the complexities in the leather making process. Each type of leather, depends on its ultimate use and thus the method that must be used in its tanning.


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