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History
In 1843, an enterprising businessman named Frederick Trent Stanley established a little shop in New Britain, Connecticut, to manufacture door bolts and other hardware made from wrought iron. Stanley's Bolt Manufactory was only one of dozens of small foundries and other backyard industries in a town struggling to succeed by producing metal products.
While the manufacturing shop epitomized the storied Yankee virtues of enterprise and craftsmanship, Stanley also possessed a special innovative spirit and an uncommon passion for doing things right. Although he employed a few skilled craftsmen, Stanley often made the products himself, fashioning door bolts with his own hands and then riding into the country on his horse-drawn buggy to sell them to farmers. He carried a screwdriver and personally installed the bolts on barn doors and farmhouses, thereby establishing customer service as a company hallmark.
In less than ten years after starting his small bolt business, Stanley had built a strong reputation for quality and received sufficient product demand to warrant the opening of a second shop to make hinges and other hardware. He joined with his brother and five other investors to incorporate The Stanley Works with a workforce of 19 men.
Under the leadership of several great presidents, The Stanley Works flourished, and a diverse group of products was manufactured under the Stanley® name. With the acquisition of the Stanley Rule & Level Company, another New Britain– based business — which had been co-founded by a distant cousin of Frederick T. Stanley — The Stanley Works boasted a broad line of rules, levels, and planes, as well as hammers, carpenter squares, and other hand tools.
Emerging American markets allowed for new territory for Stanley’s products. Capitalizing on the advent of the automobile age, Stanley introduced hardware sets for home garage doors in 1914. To counter the Great Depression, which practically paralyzed the building industry, the company created new markets with products such as portable electric tools and the “Magic Door®,” which, to the astonishment and convenience of those who passed through it, opened automatically in response to a signal from its photoelectric cell.
Today, 161 years after the company’s founding, The Stanley Works continues to be an innovative developer, manufacturer, and marketer of tools, hardware, and security solutions for professional, industrial, and consumer use. The company stills bears not only Frederick Stanley's name, but also the spirit and passion that drove him to succeed in a business where others have not. |
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