Western Electric Hawthorne Plant

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1915 Eastland Disaster

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Western Electric Plant
Life Span: 1905-~1986
Location: 22nd Street and 48th Avenue.
Architect: S. A. Treat

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The Hawthorne Works was a large factory complex of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois. Named after the original name of the town, Hawthorne, it opened in 1905 and operated until 1986. At its peak of operations, Hawthorne employed 45,000 workers, producing large quantities of telephone equipment, but also a wide variety of consumer products.

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Chicago Tribune, March 23, 1903

In pooint of its effect on real estate in that sectoon as well as its importance from the permanent industrial view, the purchase of 109 acres at Twenty-second street and Forty-eighth avenue by the Western Electric company as a site for an immense plant is by far the most moteworthy transaction of the kind that has been closed in years. That this is true is indicated by the number of deals in acre property that went to the records during last week as a direct result of the Western Electric deal. These secondary transactions were all of a speculative nature, based on the permanent beneficial effect the location of the Western Electric plant at that point is expected to have. The electric company will spend immediately $1,200,000 in buildings and nearly as much more in their equipment. Counting the cost of the ground, the total expenditures on the plant will not fall much short of $3,000,000. There are to be employed not less than 1,200 men. The plant when completed will be the largest in the southwest section of the city with the exception of the McCormick plant.

Deals in the Transaction.
For the 109 acres, which were bought from the Richmond estate, the Western Electric company paid $218,000. The tract is bounded on the north by Twenty-second street, on the south by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy right of way, on the east by Forty-fourth court, and on the west by Forty-eight avenue. It is traversed by the Belt line. In the wake of this transaction the following were closed:

Forty acres at the southeast corner of Sixteenth street and Forty-eighth avenue, Newberry library to George Manlerre, $90,992.
Forty acres at the northwest corner of Forty-eight avenue and Twenty-second street. Grant Land association to Robert W. Parker, $95,000.
Forty acres at the northeast corner of Forty-eighth avenue and Thirty-ninth street, estate of David Whitney Jr. of Detroit to Robert W. Parker, $40,000.
Ten acres at the northeast corner of Forty-fifth avenue and Twenty-second street. Ezra B. McCagg to Leroy D. Kellogg, $28,000.
Ten acres at the northwest corner of Fifteenth street and Forty-fifth avenue, estate of John A. Tyrrell to Edward F. Bayley, $20,000.

These with other smaller deals, aggregate more than $500,000 in consideration. Those named aside from the Western Electric deal were closed by parties who had inside information on the plans of the Western company and who have made their purchases expecting to reap the benefit to real estate that will accrue from the main transaction. It was said that still other similar purchases are being considered and it is safe to assume that values in the district easily accessible to the new plant will be materially strengthened.

The construction plans of the Western Electric company include a group of brick, stone, and steel buildings among which will be a one story cable factory with floor space of 150,000 square feet. An extensive foundry and machine shop will be erected on the Belt line. The power house is to have a capacity of 4,000 horse power. The erection of this plant will be for the purpose of securing additional room, the company’s plan being to retain all the space occupied by them in its $3,000,000 group of buildings on the west side. To this group there are now being made additions at the cost of $500,000.

Plants to Be Erected.
The following buildings have been planned and are ready for construction:

Water tower
Power plant
Machine shop
Fire department
Foundry
Office building
Pattern storage building
Blacksmith shop
Cable plant
Woodworking machinery building
Dry kilns

Near the center of the property will be erected a water tower 16½ feet square and 174 feet high. At different heights in the tower will be placed seven street cisterns, the largest and highest, which has a capacity of 93,000 gallons, will supply the sprinkler system throughout the entire plant. The combined capacity of these cisterns will be more than 1,500,000 gallons.

Water will be supplied to these tanks from four artesian wells sunk within the walls of the building. The interior construction of this building will be of necessity of steel, on account of the excessive loads in cisterns and water. The foundation of this building and the two chimneys will rest upon piles driven to a distance of 50 feet below the surface, at which level solid rock is found. This building will be of artistic design, in the style of the castellated towers of the fifteenth century. A red roof will surmount the tower and upon one of the corners will be a circular turret, from which is a flagstaff 60 feet high will be raised. This building will also serve as a clock tower, clock faces ten feet in diameter being shown on the four fronts. At night these clock faces will be illuminated by electric lights and will serve as a standard of time for the works and vicinity.

Fire Department for Shops.
The power plant will cover an area of 265×200 feet and will contain water boilers having a capacity of 4,000 horse-power.

There will ultimately be three machine buildings, one of which will be built immediately. Its dimensions will be 820×150 feet, with three connecting wings 50×60 feet square. Two forty ton and two twenty ton cranes will travel the entire length of the building.

Adjoining the water tower will be a building for use of the fire department. Its dimensions will be 60×42 feet, two stories in height. On the main floor will be stored the fire apparatus, the second story being used for the members of the fire department, selected from employés of the company. Smaller buildings for the protection of hose apparatus will be distributed through the ground.

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Chicago Eagle, September 19, 1903

Of special interest in industrial circles is the project of the Western Electric Company for a large plant at Hawthorne, south of 22d street and east of 48th avenue, representing an expenditure of between $5,000,000 and $7,000,000. The plant will occupy a tract of over 500 acres, for which over $1,000,000 was paid. Nine buildings are now in progress of construction, the contracts for which aggregate $1,207,247. In addition to these buildings, contracts have been let for two and a half milkes of cast-iron pipe for fire protection of the buildings, sidewalks and curbing about two miles in extent, four and one-half miles of standard railway tracks; elevated tracks on trestle work; brick sewers and surface drains about two miles in length; about three miles of fences, and other miscellaneous work amounting to $160,000. A reservoir will be constructed having a capacity of 5,000,000 gallons and will be available for fire purposes, for use in connection with condensing engines, and for emergencies in case of shortage of water supply from any source. This brings the total amount of work now under construction to $1,367,247.

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Inter Ocean, May 1, 1904

The Falkenau Construction company has been awarded the contract for additional buildings to be erected in connection with the Western Electric company’s plant at Hawthorne. The principal building will be a huge insulating plant of 401×200 feet ground dimensions. Together with minor structures the total cost of the improvement will be $142,000.

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Inter Ocean, June 10, 1904

S. A. Treat has completed plans for the gas plant to be constructed in connection with the Western Electric company’s plant at Hawthorne. The gas house will be a two-story structure, 56×115 feet, and the tank will have a capacity of 100,000 cubic feet. The work will cost $40,000.

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Hawthorne Works, For The Manufacture of Power Apparatus, Western Electric Company, 1908

The Western Electric Company has been engaged in the manufacture of electric light and power apparatus since 1881. They were the early pioneers in the development of the direct-current series arc machines and lamps. Many large municipalities. both in the United States and abroad, are stil successfully operating these machines. As the business grew and the tendency developed toward the use of larger machinery, it was found that the buildings in the city were not well adopted for such purposes, and it became necessary to seek a location where ample room could be provided, not only for present needs, but for future growth, and where buildings could be erected of suitable character, equipped with heavy cranes for handling economically the largest apparatus, and where direct railroad facilities were available for receiving and shipping heavy machinery.

Five years ago a tract of 110 acres at the extreme west of the City of Chicago was purchased. Since that time, more land has been acquired, and extensions are now being built, which, together with the buildings already completed, constitute the Hawthorne Works. Two railroad trunk lines, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Illinois Central, cross the plant, and are provided with switch connections, while the Western Indiana Belt Line, the Manufactures’ Junction Railroad, and the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad, give connection with all other trunk lines entering Chicago.

The works consist at present of the following principal groups of buildings: the Office, the Pattern Shop, the Pattern Storage, the Foundry, the Forge Shops and the Machine Shops, devoted to the manufacture of direct and alternating current motors and generators, and which are located west of the Belt Railway. The Cable and Rubber Plants are located east of the Railway.

In addition to these buildings, there is a gas plant, water tower, power plant, two crematory buildings, freight house and round house for locomotives.

The driveways connecting all the buildings are paved with concrete block.

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Hawthorne Plant
1908

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Main Entrance of Works.
The building on the far right is the Foundry, and that on the left the Pattern Storage.
1908

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View of the Foundry showing the ample head for the manufacture of the largest apparatus.
1908

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View of the Machine Shop. This building is lighted from the sides and roof.
1908

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View of the Water Tower and Fire House.
The Tower has a capacity of about 215,000 gallons of water.
1908

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A View of the Interior of the Machine Shop.
1908

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View of the Assembly Floor, showing the largest 125 volt direct current generator ever built, capacity 10,000 amperes, operating at 100 R.P.M.
1908

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Hawthorne Works
About 1910

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Western Electric Sound Film Promo
1930

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Chicago’s Accomplishments and Leaders, Compiled and Published by Glenn A. Bishop, in Collaboration with Paul T. Gilbert, 1932

HAWTHORNE—A CITY WITHIN A CITY
A Manufacturing Plant Which Has Its Own Police and
Fire Departments, Power House, Gas Works, and Water Supply
BY C. L. RICE
Vice-President, Western Electric Company.

FROM a stretch of prairie to the largest manufacturing plant in Illinois in the brief span of a quarter of a century! Such has been the growth of that city within a city, the Western Electric Company’s great Hawthorne plant.

For more than sixty years Western Electric has been identified with Chicago. Its first workshop in Kinzie street employed only a handful of men, but the advent of the telephone brought about an era of swift and amazing expansion.

The Hawthorne plant, employing in normal times 30,000 Chicagoans, manufactures most of the telephone equipment for America. Its entire out’ put is consumed by the Bell System. In addition to this huge industrial center on the southwest margin of Chicago, the company maintains two other large plants in the East, and a chain of distributing houses reaching from coast to coast.

For many of its 18,000 varieties of raw materials Hawthorne is dependent on the rest of the world. The gold miner of Alaska, the mica digger of India, men and women of every land and clime are producing goods which enter into the manufacture of telephone equipment.

Physically, Hawthorne is a modern industrial plant with 86 buildings containing over 3,000,000 square feet of available floor space. One never suspects in viewing the exterior that behind these buildings is an inner court, beautifully landscaped. There are winding streets and sidewalks, and seas of green lawns dotted with floral islands. Hawthorne is, in fact, a city in itself. It has its own police staff, a fire department, a completely equipped hospital, cooperative stores, a laundry, a railroad, a power house, a gas works, restaurants, and even its own water supply. Each month enough electricity is used to illuminate 450,000 average homes—enough to take care of a city the size of Memphis, Tennessee. In the same period gas enough to supply a city as large as Dallas, Texas, is generated and consumed.

Mechanically, Hawthorne is the wonder workshop of the world. No where else is such complicated apparatus built in such large quantities. There are 13,000 different pieces of telephone apparatus and 125,000 different kinds of parts are required in their production. These are made at the rate of more than six billion parts in a normal year—and made to such accurate dimensions that any part will fit any similarly designed telephone anywhere.

From a human standpoint, Hawthorne typifies America in that it is truly a great melting pot of the nations. While 80 per cent of the employees are native born, the other 20 per cent represent close to 60 different nationalities. An employees’ club, the Hawthorne Club, carries on an extensive social, athletic, educational and mutual welfare program that gives this widely diversified family a common meeting ground.

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Airplane view of Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, “the world’s telephone workshop.”
1930

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Western Electric Plant
About 1930

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Western Electric Model 202 Telephone with F1 Handset
1930

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Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1983

The 4,200 employees knew all along that Western Electric Co.’s giant Hawthorne Works in Cicero faced an uncertain futire, but when the announcement of its closing came Friday, it was still a shock.

Company president Donald Procknow said Friday that the AT&T subsidiary decided to close the historic Hawthorne Works—once a model of a paternalistic American factory—by 1986. The facility is not suited to produce Western Electric’s newest telecommunications equipment, he added.

“Nobody expected it this quickly,” said one 32-year employee. He said he didn’t feel betrayed—”maybe let down.”

Another employee in his 50s said “I’m just walking around. I don’t know yet how I feel.”

The plant opened in 1903 (sic), and eventually the Hawthorne Works covered 141 acres. During World War II, the plant employed 48,000 people—three-fourths of the population of the town of Cicero that housed it.

Its closing also will be a blow to the town.

Cicero has lost one other big industry in the last two years. Taylor Forge moved to Tennessee, leaving a 22-acre site now up for sale.

Western Electric president Procknow said that an examination by the company of its 22 manufacturing locations determined that the old, multi-story buildings at the Hawthorne site were “least adaptable” to the production of new computer-based products.

“Western Electric has more floor space than we can use today,” he said in a telephone interview from company headquarters in New York. Currently, the company’s manufacturing facilities are working at about 55 percent of capacity.

Procknow, who worked 10 years at Hawthorne, said the decision to shut the company’s oldest plant was “painful” but necessary for Western Electric’ viability.

Union officials at the plant were told of the company’s decision at 8 a.m. Friday and employees were informed a few hours later. “We protest the closing and have asked management for a series of meetings to see what we can do to prevent it,” said Hugh Young, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1859.

The Hawthorne plant is the oldest and ance the largest of Western Electric’s manufacturing facilities. Employment has dropped steadily since the 1960s as new telecommunications technology rendered many of the products made at the plant obsolete.

For example, the old electro-mechanical switches that formed the heart of telephone networks for decades have given way to new computerized switches. As the products changed, Western Electric generally shifted to newer plants while continuing to reduce employment at Hawthorne. Conversion is more expensive and difficult than building a new plant, said Procknow. Despite the company’s decision top build its computer “chip” plant in Orlando, Fla., Western Electric is not fleeing to the Sun Belt, he said.

“Our most modern facility is our software center in Lisle, Ill. that opened last September,” he said.

Indeed, screwdrivers are among the products made there. The plant also makes copper rods that are twisted into wires and covered with pulp to form the traditional telephone lines.

Yet Hawthorne also makes high-technology circuits that go into the Bell System’s newest lines of central office switches.

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The Hawthorne Effect.

There was a series of landmark psychological workplace studies in the early 20th century (1924-1927). They took place at the Western Electric Co. in Cicero at its Hawthorne plant, and the results became known as the Hawthorne Effect quoted frequently in psychology and sociology textbooks for decades.

The studies essentially suggested that improvement in work conditions, from lighting to more breaks to specialized training to management sympathy, would improve productivity. Later studies demonstrated flaws in the original, showing that no matter the added stimuli, improvement was somewhat temporary and output reverted to original levels.

The term “Hawthorne effect” was coined in 1958 by Henry A. Landsberger’s “Hawthorne Revisited.” when he was analyzing the Hawthorne studies.¹

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NOTES
¹Chicago Tribune, November 29, 2003

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