A Pipe To Suit Everyone - Woolworth's

[misterlowercase]

A massive factory that made the pipes, quite a crowded and jawdropping image, elbow to elbow with baggy sacks of briar root, and so many belts driven overhead shaft...

Factory workers making tobacco pipes for sale in the Threepenny and Sixpenny Stores

of F. W. Woolworth and Co. Ltd. in the UK in the 1930s...

http://woolworthsreunited.com/30s/massproduction.html
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[winton]

Cool pictures. I am amazed at the total lack of dust control. Also one of the men was wearing a tie.

 

[mso489]

This was when all the filters and stingers were added to pipes to gain a competitive edge in a booming tobacco pipe market.

 

[papipeguy]

I'm always in awe of the size of these factories.

 

[deathmetal]

Tons of people smoke, and they might be better off smoking pipes. The "obsolescence" of pipe-smoking is over-rated and over-stated. The market/consumers are just experiencing an information deficit.

 

[tuold]

A few thousand factories like those and we could end the unemployment problem

 

[misterlowercase]

A few thousand factories like those and we could end the unemployment problem

I like the way you think.
I'd put in an application for the sandblasting dept. in a heartbeat! :!:

 

[seacaptain]

Cool photos!

 

[Perique]

Today they would offshore the factories and keep only the C-suite and the marketing dept stateside

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

It is kind of scary to think about when you here that some of these companies used to ship an order of magnitude more pipes than today.
I really have to wonder if Briar is ever going to practically disappear like the Lignum Vitae.

 

[ssjones]

I wonder how many fingers were lost in those motor belts!

 

[danielplainview]

I love that storefront picture. How great would it be to see something like that today?

 

[clickklick]

So freakin cool. Thank you for sharing!
The belt sanders are scary as hell!