The Clinton W. Schwamb Company, like its predecessor Charles Schwamb and Son, manufactured frames for retailers such as frame shops, furniture stores, and galleries. One of the Schwambs’ strengths was making specialty items to the exact specifications of their customers. On a tour in 2011, Wayne Schwamb, who worked with his father Elmer at the … Continue reading The Old Man of the Mountain Frames

Today’s Schwamb Shares entry travels outside the mill building to explore some of the cultural life in the small emerging Crescent Hill neighborhood, a section of today’s Arlington Heights established in 1872, several blocks west of the Charles Schwamb mill. A vibrant mix of artisans, recent immigrants, and Boston professionals settled into the new suburban … Continue reading Edward Schwamb and the Crescent Zouave Fife and Drum Corps

Tenth in an occasional series of Schwamb Shares As we write this in July 2020, the temperature is nearing 100 degrees outside and certainly is higher than that in the Mill. In the nineteenth century, the third floor must have been a hot place to put in a ten-hour day (typical summer hours in Arlington … Continue reading Tin Pan Alley on the Mill’s Third Floor

Ninth in an occasional series of Schwamb Shares The Old Schwamb Mill’s archives include 78 accident reports completed between 1915 and 1930. The reports were submitted to the Federal Mutual Liability Insurance Company of Boston, Mass., the insurance company covering the Clinton W. Schwamb Company’s workers in accordance with Massachusetts Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1911. … Continue reading What We Can Learn from the Mill’s Accident Reports

Eighth in our occasional series of Schwamb Shares Visitors  who have toured the Mill’s downstairs front office may have learned that the Mill’s current phone number 781-643-0554 is essentially the same one that the Clinton W. Schwamb Co. had as early as 1921 -- 0554. Here’s the earliest phone bill in the Mill’s archives. Clinton … Continue reading Telephone Comes to the Mill