The Taft-Peirce Manufacturing Company was a pioneering sewing machine company established in 1875 at Woonsocket, Rhode Island. As the sewing machine industry gradually commoditized, Taft-Peirce leveraged its toolmaking capabilities to become a supplier of gauges, such as various kinds of go/no go gauges, to the manufacturing industries, and a supplier of engineering and toolroom work on a contract basis. The company was dissolved on October 6, 1995.
The Taft-Peirce Manufacturing Company prospered for over a hundred years as a completely integrated engineering, tooling and manufacturing institution. It was founded in 1875 as the Hautin Sewing Machine Company and became the Wardwell Sewing Machine Company in 1886 under the ownership of Samuel W. Wardwell. Wardwell continued the business of manufacturing industrial sewing machines, and with the supervision of his plant foreman Edwin J. Peirce expanded into the area of contract manufacturing of machines. In partnership with Daniel W. Taft, Peirce bought the assets of the company in 1895, at which time the present corporate name was adopted. In its early years, Taft-Peirce manufactured sewing machines, typewriters, and the elements of a punched card cost system. In 1903, the company went into receivership, and was taken over by a syndicate in 1905. The syndicate, led by appointed receiver Frederick Steele Blackall, has retained ownership of the firm through recent times. As late as 1982, F. Steele Blackall III was the company's president. The company was dissolved on October 6, 1995.
Taft-Peirce go/no go gauges can be routinely found on eBay for as little as $20.
Taft-Peirce is like a few industries in Fort Payne - gone, yet some remain. This cache is hidden near many of Fort Payne's surviving manufacuring industries.