Inside the works: Industrieel Weekblad, 1907
Over Meubelfabricage. Firma Van Duffelen & Pelt te Rotterdam. Under that heading a Dutch trade weekly gave its readers four illustrated pages on 11 January 1907. A writer had visited the works on one of the last days of the old year and came back with photographs. The firm survives almost entirely as newsprint and directory lines, so these pages give a rare look at the building, the machines and the men, and two finished pieces the firm had made.
The first of the four pages carries the earliest known image of the corner. Its upper photograph is captioned VOORGEVEL FABRIEK EN MAGAZIJN, the front elevation of the factory and store. A tall brick corner rises through a basement, a ground floor and three upper storeys to an ornamented gable, with a church tower just visible to the right. The article places it on a new street project in the west of the city, where the firm had been the first to move in. Ten weeks before the visit a neighbour's advertisement had already used the works as a landmark, giving no. 171 as the house beside the Van Duffelen & Pelt furniture factory. It is the earliest plate in .
Header: INDUSTRIAL WEEKLY. 255 Title: ON FURNITURE MANUFACTURE. — The firm VAN DUFFELEN & PELT of ROTTERDAM. Article body: For years the furniture trade — or rather the joiner's trade — was a handicraft in which no tools were used other than the simple hand-operated saw, plane, drill, etc. But in this field too, the old-fashioned workshops, where one or two journeymen were employed, have for the most part been replaced by factories fitted out as required, and the application of steam as motive power, together with the use of more perfected machinery, has brought about a great evolution. World cities such as Berlin, Paris and Vienna have led the way in this, and it is above all the capital of the German Empire that has furnished eloquent proof of this relatively rapid transition; in 1861 only 1/20th of the furniture-makers established there worked in factories, whereas thirty years later — in 1891 — only 1/6th of the 17,000 tradesmen were still to be found in smaller workshops. That evolution has done the furniture industry good service; indeed, an inquiry that was instituted showed that in this trade too, [Photo caption:] FRONT ELEVATION OF FACTORY AND WAREHOUSE. contrary to popular belief, poor, flimsy, tasteless work does not originate from the factories but precisely from the smaller workshops that do not possess the modern tools: the circular, band and fret saws, the grooving, planing, boring and moulding machines. By applying these tools the factories can turn out better work than the best workman with inadequate aids. [Photo caption:] MACHINE WOODWORKING. And if the latter wishes to compete on price with the former, he finds himself forced to resort to inferior kinds of wood. The furniture industry on our own soil has reached a high degree of development, both through sound workmanship and through the artistic sense (kunstzin) that speaks from it. In the period of French rule, and for another half-century afterward, our countrymen valued only what came from the City of Light [Paris], but the last 25 years have changed this state of affairs, which may be attributed in part to our excellent trade and craft schools, which have also supplied the furniture trade with a body of capable young men who have succeeded in demonstrating an independent character, a distinctive modern direction. We were again convinced of this when we recently paid a visit to a well-appointed furniture factory in Rotterdam. Messrs G. J. van Duffelen and C. Pelt, who act as the managers of this factory, went into partnership in 1889 and began their business at Lange Warande nos. 75 and 77. Already four years later the premises proved no longer sufficient to carry out all the work ordered, and it became necessary to look for a more suitable location, which was found at Haagscheveer no. 34. There too they soon faced the same situation. The abundance of work allowed them to spread their wings more broadly, but the cramped space of the workshops made this quite impossible. Still, being cautious men who did not like to leave the stable too hastily, they remained where they were for some time yet. Eventually, however, the pressure of circumstances proved too strong, and plans had to be made for a factory equipped with power-driven machinery. Seven years ago now, the inner city was accordingly left behind in order to move into a substantial building at Rochussenstraat no. 169, where — as the first occupants of a new street development in the West — they could breathe freely and enjoy space and light without hindrance. It was in this building that we took a look around on one of the last days of last year. Immediately on entering the warehouse we noticed a certain simplicity, entirely in keeping with the character of the managers, which favourably distinguishes itself […] (sentence and article cut off at the foot of the page; continues on p. 256)
The piece reads less like a profile than a polemic about mechanisation, with this factory as its proof. The writer argues that the furniture trade had moved from handwork to machine work. In Berlin, he says, only a twentieth of the furniture-makers worked in factories in 1861; by 1891 only a sixth of the city's seventeen thousand tradesmen were left in small workshops. Then he turns the popular prejudice on its head. Contrary to the common belief, he writes, poor, flimsy, tasteless work comes from the smaller workshops, and precisely from them, not from the factories. Van Duffelen & Pelt are the case he builds, with the two partners drawn as cautious men who did not like to leave the stable too hastily.
Next come the two men. G. J. van Duffelen and C. Pelt went into partnership in 1889 and began at Lange Warande 75 and 77. Four years later the premises no longer sufficed, and they moved to Haagscheveer 34. About seven years before the visit they left the inner city for the building at Rochussenstraat 169, where, the writer says, they could breathe freely as the first occupants of the new quarter. The lower photograph on the page, captioned MACHINALE HOUTBEWERKING, shows the machine woodworking.
Basement to attic, floor by floor
The second page of the article carries two photographs, captioned DE MEUBELMAKERSWERKPLAATS and DE STOFFEERDERIJ, the cabinet-makers' workshop and the upholstery shop.
Page header: 256 INDUSTRIEEL WEEKBLAD. [Industrial Weekly.] […] — continues from p. 255: ...by strong willpower paired with great modesty. Coming in from the raw outdoors, where the snow whirled down in thick flakes, cloaking the whole flat land in a spotless winter garb, the change to the soothing warmth, mingled with the pungent smell of polish and wax, felt pleasant to us in the showroom. We were, moreover, captivated by the great variety of luxury and comfort items in diverse styles, which were arranged with good taste. Behind the showroom is the office, where we got the impression of busy activity, of restless industry. Guided by one of the partners, we first visited the basement, which is fitted out as a mechanical sawmill. The open ground at the rear serves as a timber storage yard; large stacks of raw beams lie there: mahogany, oak, cedar, etc. The material whistled and creaked merrily under the force of mechanically driven planes, saws and chisels. Among other things one finds there a planing machine; the raw plank is pushed over a horizontal surface, in the middle of which, across its full width, there is an opening, beneath which several adjustable plane-irons, each 60 cm long, rotate at enormous speed. Equally useful is the milling machine, while on the horizontal circular saw — which cuts all the desired grooves and incisions into the wood — chisels can also be fitted. We were shown no fewer than 400 pieces with varying profiles, a collection ample enough to manufacture mouldings of any desired shape. It stands to reason that such a chisel forms the negative of the profile that is produced. We consider the band saw and the drilling machines too generally familiar to describe their operation in further detail. THE CABINETMAKERS' WORKSHOP. (caption beneath the first inset photograph) The automatic sharpening apparatus testifies to ingenious invention. The blunted chisel is set in a clamp before the rotating [grinding] stone, while a combination of gears gradually brings both the clamp and the chisel into a back-and-forth motion, with the peculiar result that the chisel can never be dragged out of true through clumsiness, nor needlessly lose metal. From the sawmill we went into a storage room for the wood that has been sawn into planks, and for the sheets of veneer, which — before they can be further worked — must be perfectly dry. Next to it is a hermetically sealed chamber where, by means of certain processes, the wood receives the desired colour. We note with pleasure that the most extensive safety measures are observed; besides special guards on the milling machines, all drive-belts run through wooden ducts, while the engine room, too, is adequately separated [from the rest]. For seven years, without a single day's interruption, an almost silent 13-HP Trusty gas engine works there, driving all the machinery. From the basement we went up to the first floor, which is fitted out as a store or sample room. As we already noted, one beholds there a great variety of all kinds of furniture in diverse styles, furniture that exerts a certain charm, because it is constructed with a great deal of taste. THE UPHOLSTERY SHOP. (caption beneath the second inset photograph) "Schmücke dein Heim" ["Adorn your home"], says the German; "Où peut on être mieux?" ["Where could one be better off?"] asks the Frenchman; — "My sweet home", sings the Englishman — and we Dutch possess any number of winged phrases to express that "eigen haard, goud waard" is ["one's own hearth is worth gold" — a Dutch proverb]. Indeed: clothes make the man, and furniture makes the home. Whoever agrees with that, and can spare the means to spend his life in a pleasant, cosy setting, will undoubtedly find much to his liking in this showroom. On the second floor we visited the cabinetmaking shop. Here about 20 men work at just as many workbenches, placed regularly one behind another. A guarantee of the soundness of the […] — sentence and article continue onto p. 257 (not part of this crop).
With one of the partners as his guide, the writer went first to the basement. It was fitted out as a mechanical sawmill, and the open ground behind served as a timber yard stacked with raw mahogany, oak and cedar. The horizontal circular saw cut the desired grooves and incisions and could also be fitted with chisels. The firm showed him four hundred of them with varying profiles, enough to make mouldings of any desired shape, and an automatic sharpening device kept them true. An almost silent thirteen-horsepower Trusty gas engine drove every tool in the building, the article says, and had run seven years without a day's stoppage. The place is described as carefully run: guards on the milling machines, every drive-belt boxed inside a wooden duct, and the engine in a room partitioned off to itself.
The machine floor had already appeared in print. Two years before the visit the firm advertised for a half-trained workman, a halfwas, familiar with machinale houtbewerking, machine woodworking: the very phrase the 1907 caption sets under the photograph.
Two sources describe the works' power differently. The 1905 address book calls the works a stoommeubelfabriek, a steam furniture factory, which most probably means the plant ran by steam. Two years later the interview found the thirteen-horsepower Trusty gas engine, which it says had already run seven years without a day's stoppage.
From the basement he climbed to a first-floor store and sample room, then to the second floor, where about twenty men worked at as many benches. On the third floor a timber store shared the space with the upholstery shop, the top of the house, the "attic" of the heading above. The workshop photograph is the closest thing we have to a group portrait of the corner's workforce, and not one face in it is named. That July the firm advertised for a cabinet-maker's boy and an upholsterer's boy, the two trades the photographs set side by side:
The article describes pay and working methods as precisely as it describes the machines. Every workman was on a day wage, the writer notes, so that unnecessary rushing never occurred. Only the upholstery apart, each piece was carried from start to finish by a single craftsman, so that he bore his responsibility to his employers personally. And, he concludes, only skilled men were kept on.
The same year's papers show the terms those men worked under. In the spring of 1907 Van Duffelen & Pelt and other named Rotterdam furniture employers granted a ten-hour day and an increase in hourly wages.
> Meubelmakers. > De Chr. Meubelmakersvereeniging "Helpt Elkander" besloot de beide meubelmakersvereenigingen hier ter plaatse uit te noodigen ter bespreking van de vraag, op welke wijze een 10-urige arbeidsdag te verkrijgen was. [...] Het R. K. meubelmakersgilde "St. Jozeph" en de Chr. meubelmakersver. "Helpt Elkander" namen het besluit om per circulaire hun gedachten kenbaar te maken. Op 21 Januari 1907 werd aan de Patroonsvereeniging en de patroons in het algemeen het verzoek gericht om dato 15 Maart 1907 te willen invoeren in hun bedrijven de n.v. regeling: [werktijd- en loonregeling volgt] [...] > Beide vereenigingen mochten het genoegen smaken resultaat van haar arbeid te zien, want bereidwillig werd door de firma's Allan en Co., Eckhart en de heeren patroons Kiessel, Westerhof en Ten Bosch, Godschalk en Van Duffelen en Pelt de gevraagde regeling ingevoerd, met deze wijziging, dat de heeren Westerhof en Ten Bosch deze met 2 April invoeren zullen en bij de firma Allan en Co. de loonsverhooging 22 Maart plaats heeft.
The settlement reached the labour press too. On 20 March 1907 Het Volk reported the ten-hour day and the wage rise and named the firms that had granted them.
Two pieces the firm made
For a long time we believed that no photograph of anything Van Duffelen & Pelt made had survived. The third page overturned that. Two of its photographs carry the same caption in brackets, Proeve van uitgevoerd werk hier ter stede, a specimen of work carried out here in this city. One shows a Huiskamer-ameublement, a living-room suite with its chimney-piece panelling, hearth and clock; the other a compleet Slaapkamer-ameublement, a complete bedroom suite.
[header] Industrieel Weekblad. 257 [column 1] […] output, we consider it significant that in this firm every workman is on a day wage, so that unnecessary rushing never occurs in carrying out his task of assembling the loose parts that come from the sawmill. Every piece is worked from start to finish — except for the upholstering — by the same craftsman, so that he personally bears responsibility to his employers for its proper completion. From this one may conclude that only skilled workers are employed at this factory. Besides the staff working in the workshops, there are always a few men on hand to fit permanent panelling in shops, restaurants or houses. Adjoining the cabinetmaking shop is the workroom of the craftsmen charged with making the fine details of the salon pieces. Here brass and wood are sawn, used to adorn étagères, jewellery- and silver-cabinets, and other luxury items. A miniature fretsaw does the fine work here. The hundreds of models hanging along the walls, and the peculiar tools for brass-working scattered on the workbenches, testify to the great variety of forms these ornaments and inlays take. We were then led to a timber store on the third floor, where again we saw stacks of costly wood species. The upholstery workshop is also on this same floor. Although the upholsterer may be called an indispensable man, whose work is the first to give an object grace and appearance — so that it lies within his power to transform a rough piece into an ornament — it is nonetheless difficult to describe his craft. Here the deed speaks better than the word. A chair or sofa without upholstery would be an ugly obstacle standing in the way, bought by no one, yet it is remarkable with what skill the upholsterer contrives the utility and elegance of such a piece of furniture. [column 2 — captions beneath the two photographs] (Specimen of work executed locally.) LIVING-ROOM SUITE, INCLUDING CHIMNEY-PIECE PANELLING, HEARTH, CLOCK, ETC. [photograph: as described above] (Specimen of work executed locally.) COMPLETE BEDROOM SUITE. [photograph: as described above] [column 3] Having concluded our tour, we discussed a few further particulars of the business in the office, and it became clear to us how greatly the requirements of customers differ. We admired, among other things, the design for an elaborate salon piece (a combination of a settee, above which a mirror with two jewellery cabinets and ten étagères), which had been made in the factory some years before. This giant piece measures 3.30 m by 2.50 m, with a depth of 60 cm, and is made of kingwood (koningshout), originating from the West Indies, a wood known for its deep red colour. The columns are of amaranth wood, and satinwood, walnut [note-], amaranth and other coloured woods besides were used for the inlay work. For about a year, one man — sometimes two — worked on this capital piece of furniture. Set against the design of this masterpiece, the partners showed us an example of simple comfort that nonetheless testified no less to manual skill and technical knowledge. It was a dining chair made of oak, foldable into four parts and fitted with an American seat. Its advantage is that six of these folding chairs, when not in use, take up no more room than a single chair of normal size. For those who live in small quarters and receive guests unexpectedly, these chairs — made ready for use most simply by means of a couple of small screws — are particularly effective. It is a fact that the firm Van Duffelen & Pelt is among those who know how to trim their sails to the tide — in other words, it keeps pace with the times in every respect. Thus, for four years now, it has taken care to maintain a presence in the heart of the Maas city [Rotterdam] by means of a showroom. It need not do this so much to make its name known, as rather to spare its numerous customers the great distance from their homes to the factory. […] (Continued from p.256 — the opening of the shop visit, with the workshop and upholstery-room photographs — and continuing on to p.258, not translated here.)
The writer also describes two pieces he saw that the page does not photograph, presenting them as a deliberate pair. The first is a salon combination he calls a giant: a settee with a mirror above it, flanked by two little jewellery cabinets and ten étagères. It measured three metres thirty by two metres fifty and was sixty centimetres deep, made of kingwood from the West Indies with columns of amaranth, and took a full year's work by one man and sometimes two. The second, its opposite, is offered as the firm's example of plain comfort: an oak dinner chair that folds into four parts and has an "American" seat; six of them pack into the space of one. The two suites above are the photographs the interview reproduces of the firm's own work. No labelled or attributable object of theirs has been catalogued in a Dutch museum collection, and whether either suite survives is unknown, but we keep them as pictures.
Besides the workshop hands, the article notes a standing crew for outside work: always a few men ready to fit permanent panelling in shops, restaurants or houses. The same year records exactly that kind of commission. In 1907 Van Duffelen & Pelt made the interior woodwork, the betimmeringen, of the watchmaker-jeweller G. Brunott's rebuilt shop at Binnenweg 35. The shop-window copperwork was another firm's, and a Rotterdam daily's city-news column set the two side by side.
The shop the works fed
The last of the four pages leaves Rochussenstraat for the city centre. Its photograph is captioned HET MAGAZIJN AAN DE WITTE DE WITHSTRAAT, the store on the Witte de Withstraat.
258 INDUSTRIEEL WEEKBLAD. Under the direction of its representative, Mr Wenteler, it [the firm] opened its first shop at Coolvest no. 96. As the enterprise flourished, this branch also became too small, so that in the course of 1905 it had to be moved to Witte de Withstraat no. 57. In an instant the "electric" [tram] brought us from the Rochussenstraat to this handsomely appointed building, which we likewise inspected. The double hall on the ground floor and the three rooms on the first floor are richly stocked with the most varied pieces of furniture. We viewed with interest the large collection of carpet samples, fabrics and upholsterer's [Photograph: interior of the furnished showroom — two upholstered wing armchairs in the foreground, a seated man at a desk and a standing man beside a cabinet in the middle distance, a tall window at the back.] THE STORE ON THE WITTE DE WITHSTRAAT. trimmings at the firm's disposal. One finds there nearly everything to furnish an entire dwelling, from cellar to attic, in an up-to-date manner. Just as birds build their nest, in earlier years young people who wished to set up house gathered everything from left and right, and the natural consequence of this was that one ended up with a styleless whole; nowadays, however, it is becoming more and more the custom to entrust this work to one particular firm, in which one places one's trust, and through which the good result of a complete furnishing with a harmonious effect is obtained. Our interview has led us to state as our conviction that the firm Van Duffelen & Pelt fully deserves this trust.
According to the article, the firm opened its first downtown shop at Coolvest 96 under a representative named Wenteler. As the business grew the branch became too small, and in 1905 it moved to Witte de Withstraat 57. The electric tram, the writer says, brought him there from the works in an instant. He found a double hall on the ground floor and three rooms above, richly stocked with nearly everything needed to furnish a whole house from cellar to attic.
What the trade registers called them
The photographs show a factory. The directories of the same years show a firm that could not quite be filed under a single trade. When the Rotterdam address book first classified it, in 1901, it put the firm under joiners, the schrijnwerkers.
Upholsterers were added in 1904, when the volume listed them twice, under both headings on two different pages.
By 1912 dealers had been added too. In that year's book the firm stood in all three trades at once, as maker, upholsterer and dealer, four years before it left the corner.
Each label joined the others instead of replacing them, and the interview shows why. A works that sawed its own timber in the basement, made suites upstairs and sold them from a hall across town was several trades under one roof.
In 1907 the trade's good opinion of them is recorded once more. On 12 April the same weekly printed the jury for what its page calls only "the aforementioned exhibition", which we identify as the Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Huisvlijt en Nijverheid, a national exhibition of home crafts and industry. Van Duffelen & Pelt stood among the twenty-three names.
Industrieel Weekblad, 12 April 1907, page 362: The jury of the aforementioned exposition too (consisting of the gentlemen: C. de Monchy, chairman, Mr. A. W. Kist, secretary, A. D. J. Brantenaar, J. A. M. Bekking, Corns. Baljon Gzn., Th. Brans, Wouter Cool, Van Duffelen & Pelt, Ewald Behle, W. Ganter, A. den Held Jr., J. G. Heyberg, Mrs. E. Kramer—Obreen, J. C. de Lange, Bernard Nooijen, M. J. Radermacher, W. C. Stolk, J. Schotel Szn., W. H. J. Ulrich, N. van Velzen, J. la Verge, J. Verheul and J. M. Wilton) took these considerations into account and awarded Mr. E. F. Meijer the first prize for the "Eureca," as well as an honourable mention for the work produced by that machine.
The jury gave E. F. Meijer first prize for his Eureca knitting machine, with an honourable mention for the work made on it. Here the firm is not being advertised or recruited from; it has been asked to judge someone else's work. The leaf does not say which of the two partners took the seat. Set beside the four photographs, it is a second glimpse from the same year of how outsiders saw the works.