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Working at White: A History of White Motors

Of all the Cleveland-based auto manufacturers, the longest-lived company was White Motor, which got its start with steam-powered cars, but became one of the main truck manufacturers in America.

But the company did not start by producing automobiles, but instead got its start by making sewing machines. The company had been started by Thomas White in Massachusetts, though he moved to Cleveland in 1876, where new markets were opening up for his sewing machines, and the central location of the city made it easy to distribute his products all over the country. By the 1890s, the company was well-entrenched as a major sewing machine company with nationwide sales, but White soon introduced a new product, the bicycle. Right after the bicycling craze of the 1890s, the automobile began making an appearance. This new mode of transportation fascinated Thomas White's sons, who were helping their father run the company. Brothers Windsor and Rollin White convinced their father that automobiles were something that would gain in popularity, and he allowed them to start developing an automobile at the White plant. Rollin White was an excellent engineer, and after studying various automobiles, worked to redesign the boiler used on steam-powered cars, which were quite popular in the early days. He developed a flash boiler that was safer than existing boilers, and allowed the automobile¹s engine to produce steam faster than a traditional steam engine.

The two brothers felt that a whole new market was opening up, and set up the Automobile Department at White. It was not difficult for the production lines at White to produce the components necessary for automobiles, and Rollin developed an engine for the new vehicle. Their brother Walter joined them, to head up the Automobile Department's marketing and customer service, as well as serving as test driver. In 1899, the brothers brought out their first steam-powered automobile, followed soon after by a small delivery truck. Though the company quickly gained a reputation for quality vehicles, Thomas White still was unsure about the new product, but allowed his sons to split off the Automobile Department into a new company, the White Motor Car Company.

White Sewing Machine continued to focus on its product line, and the new car company moved out, building a factory on Cleveland's eastern edge. Soon the steam-powered car was replaced with the gasoline-powered car, and White quickly adapted, continuing to build expensive, high-quality cars and light trucks. During World War One, the company produced trucks for the military, and also exported trucks. Czar Nicholas of Imperial Russia had a whole squadron of White-built trucks, which garnered a great deal of publicity for the young company. At the end of the war, the decision was made to end car production because of the extensive competition, and instead focus on producing trucks. In a short period of time, White was able to capture ten percent of the American truck market. White trucks and busses soon became famous around the country for their quality.

During the 1920s, the company also quickly gathered a good reputation as a place to work. Employees were called members of the White Motor family, and the presence of Walter and Windsor White along with other executives on the factory floor was constant. The company also had a full range of social offerings, including a branch of Cleveland Public Library in the factory, a variety of orchestras, jazz bands, and ethnic bands made up of workers and sponsored by the company, a factory restaurant, a factory store that sold a variety of household items below cost, sports teams, and company picnics at nearby Euclid Beach Park. The White employees, many of them immigrants from the heavily Slovenian and Polish neighborhood surrounding the plant, embraced these social welfare programs, and were fiercely loyal to the company. Employment at White soon became a family affair, as sons followed fathers into the plant, and other family relatives sought employment at White.

White entered the Great Depression in a bad way. Company president Walter White died in a car accident in Cleveland Heights, while Rollin White had quit to start the Cleveland Tractor Company and new management did not have the same White Motor Family feeling that the White brothers did. White workers, unhappy with the new management, organized a union in 1933, which soon won recognition, making it one of the first formally-recognized automobile unions in the country. Because of the Depression, the company¹s sales plummeted, and the company briefly merged with Studebaker, before managing to end the merger and remain independent. A new president, Robert Fager Black, was appointed in 1935. By this time the workers were quite unhappy, and the union led them out on strike. Black, a former executive at a competing truck company, immediately approached the picket lines and began talking with them. Seeing that they were bored standing on the picket line, he had baseball equipment purchased and distributed, and allowed them to play baseball on company ball diamonds during the strike. He also worked with them to restore the White Motor Family feeling, and the strike quickly ended. Black was universally loved by White workers. He spent at least an hour on the plant floor every day, and worked hard to learn the names of as many employees as possible. He called on White¹s customers personally to see if they were satisfied with their trucks, and he also followed a strict open-door policy, letting anyone stop in and see him anytime they wanted to.

Robert Fager Black, the man who saved White Motors in the 1930s

Black worked hard to return White to profitability, but it was not until World War Two that the company was finally to regain its earlier success. The company's biggest customer was the military, as White produced heavy trucks, scout cars, and halftracks for the Army. With many White employees leaving for the military, Robert Black filled their ranks by inviting the wives of White employees to take the place of those employees who left for the service. Black was able to keep White producing, and at its peak during the war, the company employed more than 4000 workers. Black also continued White¹s social welfare programs, and even added a carpool service to make sure that all his employees were able to get to work, and remained a favorite with employees until his retirement in 1956. After the war, the company concluded that they should focus primarily on the heavy-truck market. Previously, White had produced a variety of trucks, ranging from light delivery trucks to heavier industrial trucks. But now they wanted to focus only on the heavy trucks, and to enter the market, the company began purchasing smaller companies that produced heavy trucks, like Sterling, Reo, Diamond T, and Autocar. White also entered into an agreement with heavy truck producer Consolidated Freightways of Orgeon; White would sell the CF trucks in its own dealers, and CF would rebadge the trucks as White-Consolidated Freightways trucks.

Sales began to drop in the 1960s as debt increased because of bad management decisions. At one point in the 1970s, White even tried to merge with its old corporate parent, White Consolidated Industries, a large conglomerate that was the descendent of the White Sewing Machine Company, but this was blocked by the federal government. White turned to new management, bringing in Semon Bunkie Knudsen, son of a longtime GM president, and a former president of Ford in his own right. Knudsen briefly made the company profitable again with a new line of trucks, but he could not overcome years of mismanagement. The company opened new factories in Virginia and Utah where there were no unions, but the bottom was falling out. White Motor again approached White Consolidated, this time with federal approval, but White Consolidated stockholders blocked the move, afraid that a failing White Motor would bring White Consolidated down. White Motor began selling off subsidiaries, and sought out merger partners with a number of European truck makers, including Renault and Daimler-Benz.

The last truck rolls off the line at White Motor's East 79th Street plant

White began laying off workers at the East 79th Street plant, and in 1980 closed it completely. White also declared bankruptcy in 1980, and the truck-making plants in Virginia, Utah, and Orrville, Ohio were sold to Volvo, which kept the White name for a number of years before finally retiring it in the late 1990s.