Date:

Network Pictures and Networking in the Introduction of the New Chemical Tannage

Michael Redwood October 2003

In a world of "joint ventures" and "partnerships" it has become each year more apparent that individual businesses, perhaps even individual functions within a business, are required to put aside their short term objectives and work with others towards a greater middle or long term good.

Ford et al (2003) provide a model to look at these circumstances via an examination of the networks in which businesses exist, recognizing that problems and issues arise from unexpected parts of the greater business network. Indeed as the butterfly dying in Mexico may cause an earthquake in Japan, often the sources of business difficulties arise from areas which are not initially seen as being part of the network at all.

This study looks at the leather industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s and examines the first, and perhaps only, major technological change in the long history of the processing of leather. In this attention is paid to the establishment of a leather and a shipping business by the Booth family of Liverpool. It takes a longitudinal view of the changes in the networks involved in this activity, and examines how they reacted to the difficulties which arose.

Industry background

In the 1800s the USA saw profound societal changes as its population grew and new manufacturing technologies and methodologies were introduced. The proximity with France during the War of Independence had returned Jefferson to the US from Paris with strong personal opinions on the importance of The Enlightenment that were to play a role in the introduction of the concept of "interchangeable parts" now recognized as a major catalyst in the move to large factories and mass production.

The growth of the railroads, introduction of refrigeration and the growing needs of the population for clothing and footwear lead to profound changes in the location and the structure of the leather industry. Abattoirs were relocated, packers established, and the availability of bark for tanning was steadily moving the industry from its East Coast location (Hoover, 1937)

Part of this process saw the continued development of new machines for the leather industry, and for new chemicals to be used. Two routes were being followed. First to reduce the process time from 9 months plus and second to make softer and thinner leathers which did not lose their tannage when dampened or wet.

Things began to move rapidly during the civil war in 1862-5. The war greatly increased the demand for leather. Not just for footwear but also for harness and saddlery plus many types of belting and other industrial leathers. This pushed the industry to think of proper indutrialisation. Multi story tannery mills were built with lines of new machines driven by steam power offering significant levels of mass production never before imagined.

The technical leap forward for the leather industry actually began in Germany in the 1850s when Dr Frederick Knapp¹, Professor of the Polytechnic School of Braunschweig, Germany made a thorough investigation of mineral tannages. His British patent 2,716 (1861), through John H. Johnson, covered iron, chrome, manganese, and other metallic salts in combination with fatty acids to form insoluble metallic soaps, so that the iron in the pelt might not be washed out.

Knapp and his colleagues in Europe were not successful in producing chrome tanned leather commercially, and the traditional vegetable tanning process remained predominate. Vegetable tanning was and remains a good process but the chemical molecules are large. This makes penetration slow giving great bulk to the leather, thus making the process time long and the leather generally thick and hard. Some skins such as sheep and goat were tanned with alum to make softer glove leather, but this tannage washed out very easily when wet.

The Booth Family

During the 1800s industry and society in the UK was also changing. In Liverpool the Booth family had been forced to recognize that their long successful family business in grain was coming to a close and the two sons Charles and Alfred were educated in international trading and shipping, using family friends in a tightly knit nonconformist - Unitarian - society.

In the 1860s the brothers established a business in New York importing raw material (part processed) from the UK to the US tanning industry. They also set up a separate business with two small steamships they commissioned doing business between three northern ports of Brazil and Liverpool.

In 1877 the Booths were hit by the potential loss of $70,000 when the Kent and Stevens tannery in Gloversville, upstate New York, was impacted by the fraudulent activities of one of the owners, Stevens. Booths decided to pay off all the other creditors and back the remaining partner, John Kent. John Kent was a recognised leather scientist who was working on new processes which were felt to be of considerable potential by the Booths.

Success came quite quickly and in 1879 the company brought to market a new product they branded as "Dongola" leather, named after a town in Sudan that was much in the news at that time. Dongola was a mix of a vegetable tannage called gambier (which had been identified by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1803) and alum, and gave a rapid and resistant tannage.

This production was developed with gloving leather in mind but was also found to be good for footwear leather using goat and kangaroo, so the Booths had to seek out supplies of these. For kangaroo an agent was appointed in Sydney, and for goat they decide to look in Northern Brazil and use their own ships to transport the skins - both goat and later hair sheep - to the USA.

In 1880 they were able to launch a new brand "Daisy Kid" which was a Brazilian goat from Ceará (now called Fortaleza) tanned with Dongola Tannage to make an imitation kid. This was a very important leather for footwear at the time.

The timing of the takeover of Kent and Stevens by Booth linked closely with Mr Julius Kuttner joining the company to manage the New York office, and he went to Gloversville to provide the commercial control needed to free John Kent for his researches.

Moving frequently between New York and Gloversville Mr Kuttner met Augustus Schultz in the late 1870s. Schultz was a German chemist working in the dyestuff industry, and he fancied himself as an inventor. Kuttner gave him access to the tannery in Gloversville and from 1880 until 1884 he worked on trying to perfect the chrome tanning process first suggested by Knapp. His knowledge of the recently established synthetic dyestuff industry founded by Perkins meant that he was aware of large quantities of chromium compounds being produced as a bi-product.

In 1884 he took out two patents for his new process, but could not persuade Booths to put it at once into production. Perhaps the Dongola was doing too well, or Mr Kent was somewhat jealous of his part time researcher. Schultz lost interest in his patents and sold them to a New York leather chemical company Blumenthal, who subsequently sold the development south to Philadelphia.

In 1890 Booths agreed to be sole agents for a product to be produced by a Philadelphia Tanner J.P.Mathieu tanned with the new chromium process. This was to be Brazilian goat supplied by Booth tanned in chromium, dyed only in black and finished with a traditional polished or "glazed" finish. This was to be marketed under the name "Surpass".

This production was wildly successful, even more so than Dongola. By 1894 some of the goat and kangaroo production in Gloversville had been converted to chrome and there was steady expansion in Philadelphia. By 1900 the Philadelphia plant was producing half a million dozen skins a year and was the largest tannery in the world. In 1904 the shareholding of the tannery changed giving the Booths the majority and in 1906 they changed the name of the tannery to Surpass. The shareholding of the original owners was liquidated over a few years.

The World and the UK

As Dr Luck (1986) summarised: chrome tannage was "discovered in Europe, developed to technical maturity in America, and returned to Europe via England, and with the turn of the century began its unstoppable advance." For the last five decades of the 20th century it can be estimated that approximately 90% of leather made throughout the world has been chrome tanned. As such it has proven to be both a robust and a dominant technology.

The transfer to Europe was not easy and Church (1971) bemoans the slow progress made in the UK. He notes problems with British Tanners' attitude to scientific research and to an unwillingness to stray from a winning formula. H.R.Procter had in 1877 advised the Tanners Society of Great Britain (idem, p561) in a paper entitled "scientific research and its relation to tanning" of unfavourable comparisons between the attitude of British and European Tanners towards science. Church (p 563) notes that by 1913 still 90% of the chrome tanned leather consumed in the UK was imported. It was the need for high volumes of leather quickly produced to supply troops in the First World War that transformed the industry, but still left the UK having moved from first to third in world dominance of leather production and technological development. This despite the fact that a British company had funded and lead the commercialisation of the new chrome tannage.

Tanners in Leeds were particularly important in the UK at that time and Church quotes Rimmer's paper on the reasons for their decline: ""The core of the matter" said Mr. Rimmer, "was that the ageing gentlemen who owned old reputable tanneries were not especially interested in new methods. They were emotionally committed to methods which had earlier made them successful". As Church puts it "there was in effect a generation gap; a demonstration of sheer entrepreneurial conservatism".

Network Pictures

In industrial marketing it is accepted that dyadic relationships are vital to the furtherance of business (Grönroos, 1990) and that these vital dyadic relationships sit within a very complex network of relationships.

While, as Sanzo et.al. (2003) confirm, the focal dyadic relationship is "the unit of primary interest" the business network itself is defined as a set of two or more connected business relationships in which each exchange relation is between business firms that are conceptualised as collective actors" Anderson et al (1994).

Blankenberg (1992) identified 14 distinct category types amongst the actors involved in a network surrounding a customer-supplier relationship. These are:

Anderson et al (1994) have a similar listing but classed into ten categories, but the conclusion from both is to understand the complexity and diversity of actors and relationships in a business network.

Ford et al (2003) describe how a company's network position is made of a complexity of relationships which have three aspects

It is a natural consequence of this complexity that no two businesses, even when competing as apparent equals, will have the same network, and as a consequence their ability to compete will vary.

The three dimensional aspect of networks is described by Holmen and Pederson (2001) with a business having its unique structure related to legal and finance, IT, innovation and new product development, human relations, and logistics matters. They show that this structure is so complex that a prioritisation is necessary, with choices being made not to interact with parts of the network.

We are provided with a methodology (Fig 1) with which to examine the dynamics of what is happening by Ford et al (2003) involving an examination of "network pictures", "networking" and "network outcomes".

Network pictures relate to the views of the network held by participants in that network. No two actors (participants) are likely to see the network in the same way.

In our study our first significant network is the business, family and social network in which the Booth family lived and worked in Liverpool.

This is an interesting study in its own right as it must bear comparison with other UK industrial areas in the 19th century, for example, where the Quakers dominated. All members of the network came easily together in terms of shared beliefs. All had common backgrounds, with similar education and, of course, religion. There is considerable comparison with the Clyde shipbuilders of the same time as described by Schwerin (2003).

This high level of alignment created very open relationships with high levels of information transfer which would not be common amongst 21st century firms. The boys were apprenticed with Lamport and Holt, a well known Liverpool merchant house and as well as learning trading watched the start of the transfer from sail to steam, as Lamport and Holt were involved in the Alexandria trade in the Mediterranean. Mr Lamport was a second cousin of their father.

On completing his apprenticeship Alfred Booth took a temporary post in the New York office of an even greater Liverpool merchant house, Rathbone and Company. The managers in New York at that time were both members of the Chapel in Liverpool of which the Booth family had been founder members. One of the managers, William Lidderdale, was to go on to be a Governor of the Bank of England.

When the brothers then moved to set up their business they had both business advice and investment funding from these friendly organisations. The decisions to become agency traders in the Atlantic business, and then to enter the steamship business were to follow the growth patterns of the time. To then specialise in the leather business on the one hand and the three northern ports of Brazil (Fortaleza, Sâo Luiz, and Belem) came from discussions as to how they could find sectors which were not already dominated by the big established businesses. It would also mean for their network partners a financial interest in an extension of their businesses, where their expertise was of value, but they themselves did not have time to fully support the risk of entry.

Here we have seen the overlapping of financial, mercantile, shipping and social networks to create a new business with a considerable chance of success. It bears much similarity with many aspects of extended family businesses to day in China and in India.

The first set of issues that the Booths had to deal with related to their choice of position within the leather network. They needed to develop quickly strong trusting relationships with UK suppliers and a similar set of relations with customers in the US.

It was likely that the family and wider social network was much used in the UK, and the family reputation carried far. This with the references of Rathbones would have put them in good stead. They quickly built a network of suppliers in London, Nottingham, Leicester and Bootle. Goods were held in Liverpool and shipped to New York where they were again warehoused before being sold in the local leather area called the Swamp . Other leather would go to up state New York, to Gloversville which was the major centre for US glovemaking or to Boston, which was the centre for footwear.

Traders in any technical industry will have a difficult time at first and this was the case for the Booths. Early on we find Charles writing to his brother vowing never again to buy another cask of pickled pelts from Turney of Nottingham. "I was never able to tell whether the skins were right or not and Turney could always shut me up". Nevertheless the relationship with Turney Brothers was to last until 1971.

The issue with Kent and Stevens was confronted and very positively dealt with. On the one hand the observer could view it as a tactic to minimise losses, but the available literature points to the company trying to take a wider view of their business network and to see opportunity for new technologies such as that James Kent was working on. Writing later Charles Booth was to say "the working up of a new business which is the life of any concern as ours", and it can be viewed that while the purchase had a tactical element it had its basis in strategy and the Booth belief that they could exploit successfully any invention which Kent could make.

Having changed the dyadic relationship with Kent and Stevens stability had been created which allowed the development of new ideas. The insinuation of the Booth network into the leather industry manufacturing network emphasised its unusual structure. The Booths were accustomed to change and interested in innovation. Their uncle, George, was famous for his work on steam engines. He had been a founder of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, and his inventions included the multitubular boiler first used in the Rocket in 1829.

As the success of the Dongola increased additional supplies of raw material were needed. Staff were despatched to Australia to look for kangaroo and the company began looking all round the world for goatskins. The link into Brazil for goat skins would almost certainly not have been considered had there not been a Booth shipping line travelling there and looking for suitable cargoes. The speed with which thee connections were made should be noted. They identify the value of their unique network at that time, with the structure in place to quickly set up arrangements in Sydney and to exploit their Brazilian shipping links to the full.

It is worth examining two network pictures of the Booths Company twenty years apart.

In the mid 1880s the Booth Company comprised:

What can be seen here is that a number of links would be growing which brought the US offices into direct communication with overseas suppliers of hides and skins. A network outline is shown in Figure 2 with arrows showing the flow of goods.

The development and introduction of the Dongola process and of chrome tanning had within 20 years changed the orientation of the Booth business. The company was no longer based on the principle of middle men but rather by 1905 they were tanners with HQ in Philadelphia, and trading as a subsidiary. The US became the centre of the leather activities and a partner relocated in New York, after many years of leaving matters in the hands of Mr. Kuttner.

This situation is shown in Figure 3 as we move into the 1900s. Many more dyadic relationships had developed around the New York office and between the US members and the raw suppliers and customers.

Quietly and insistently Booths had adjusted their position in the network to become tanners as well as traders in the US business. Indeed they had become one of the most significant tanning organisations in the world at that time and perhaps the only one with the associated world wide knowledge and access to raw materials.

Although this was done steadily and without great publicity, the moves made were definitive and positive.

What is clear is that the network picture they had of the business of leather, its trading and its technology, was one framed within an international trading and shipping environment. There is an apparent open-mindedness in their approach to business structure which seems to come from those Liverpool associates who gave them advice. This group was willing to share information and give good advice even although there was a potential for rivalry, and much of this could be viewed as an interest to expand their own network pictures in terms of depth and breadth. They were certainly very open-minded and appear interested to view their businesses as a wide network enthusiastic about the business of networking and trying to avoid too precise positioning or control.

There is certainly a strong link between Booths success from 1853 to 1890 and their use of communication via their contacts and offices around the world. Offices were quickly located where they felt they would be beneficial. Shortly after the company began a Boston office was set up to deal with sales there, and when skins were needed from Belgium and France Booths established an office in London where they could meet frequently with the European traders in Mincing Lane.

At the same time a large aspect of working in the leather industry as factors involved the provision of credit to smaller firms on both sides of the Atlantic. Associated with this was the need to be skilled in the movement of money between the US and Europe, at a time of fluctuating exchange rates. The hide and skin markets of the world are notoriously volatile and they had to handle this while buying in Sterling and selling in Dollars. After 1879 a gold standard was established but by then the Booth Company's unique network structure had given them skills which meant trading for hides and skins in other more far flung parts of the world would be much easier than for their competitors.

To put it another way careful management of their network position and of the relationships within the network had significantly increased the barriers to entry for competitors. They were clearly defined by their network but continued to adjust their position in it to avoid losing flexibility for further action. They also appeared able to do so without creating a negative reaction from their customers so that they were able to work within their networks as buyers and sellers at the same time.

By comparison The US Leather Company, founded in 1893 as the largest company in the USA, and one of the founding companies of the Dow, appear to have caused aggravation throughout their network and at home and abroad (Dewing(1911) and Donham (1930)).

This is in part described by Sonza et al (2003) in relation to trust and commitment. In the way that the US tanners united to form a new business they deliberately reacted to re-align the network and confront the suppliers and the customers so as to change the economics in their favour. Thus while there were cultural differences between the US and the UK which Sonza argues need to be overcome for trust and commitment to succeed in dyadic relationships Booths long presence in the US, history of fair trading, employment and commitment to local staff, and willingness to invest will have helped them to become adequately integrated into the US leather business. "To Americanize, it is essential for the buyer and seller to get the habit of dealing with each other. Fine offices and highly paid salesmen make it necessary to get higher prices for our leather but do not of themselves sell it" wrote Mr. Booth. All these aspects could be considered as norms for international traders, and as such skills brought to the Booth network from their trading and shipping links.

For Booths the discovery of an efficient method of tanning by chemical means, first Dongola and then the much more solid chrome tannage, adaptable for hides and calfskins, but of particular value in producing a cheap kid leather, created a huge opportunity. Its development in 1890-1900 "saw more progress in the art of leather manufacture than in any decade in the world" according to John (p 73).

"Consumption of hides in the US from 1889 to 1899 increased 21% and sheepskin 39%, while goatskins multiplied by 1600%. It now became possible to use kid leather in all upper parts of footwear, where previously it had been confined to mere decoration and to the more expensive types of women's footwear. The production of this chemically tanned leather became the specialty of the Philadelphia district, the process spreading only slowly to other countries."

On the supply side they also had to continue their activities. With the growth indicated above they needed additional supplies and between 1895 and 1905 set up relationships with trading houses in India, China, Brazil, in addition to the establishments already made in Australia and New Zealand.

With regard to customers Lilley and Skinner became the first English shoemaker to use Surpass chrome kid and by 1899 a warehouse in Bermondsey was added to the London office and agents established for selling the leather into France and Germany. In 1900 arrangements were made for sales into Russia. In 1914 Booth equipped all its US salesmen with motor cars to visit customers.

Booths continued technical advances. They had tried hard to improve the Dongola further to make it more widely applicable, without much success, and after introducing chrome they backed another new leather invented by a Mr. Wolff, also from Philadelphia. This patent leather type ran for a few years before they withdrew in 1904 and accepted that their "Ideal' product had failed. They kept the brand name for future use.

As they saw the success of the export of the US leather to Europe and the failure of European tanners to adopt chrome tanning the Booths then embarked on bringing the technology to Europe themselves, and over the next fifteen years they progressively moved with their existing partners and with new ones - Wades in Nottingham for shoe leather and Pavlova in Abingdon for glove leather - to transfer the technology. Formulas and staff were sent from the US to help with this process.

By 1914 Booths had adjusted their network further into a Surpass Leather centric organization. One the one hand they had consolidated with 27% of the shipping business now employed between US ports and half the distance traveled by the whole fleet was in US waters. Acquiring raw materials and distributing finished leather brought them into touch with all parts of the world.

They had also added interests in glue, gelatine and felt (all bi-products of the raw hide and skin trade) on both sides of the Atlantic.

By comparison much of the residual leather business in the UK and the USA was suffering. In the UK tanners were unwilling to change from the old vegetable processes and decided to stay with the products and markets which they knew.

However while populations and footwear markets continued to grow the other uses for leather in harness and saddlery and industrial uses started to decline. One can consider the Leeds tanner's network picture between 1890 and 1900 and compare it with that of the Booths. The Leeds tanner would use local hides and mostly local chemicals, augmented by some European tanning materials brought up the Aire by barge. He would be selling into the local trade, and had been doing so successfully and profitably since the 1860s. His business network was defined, stable and successful. His network was his source of profit and security, but as defined in the first network paradox (Ford, 2003, p 24) it could become the cage which entraps him.

As shown in Table 3 the Leeds tanner did have choices but would not want to disturb his excellent existing relationships, and based on his restricted horizon, either would not see nor did not choose to create a different position for himself in the developing networks in which he was involved. Obviously these tanners were part of the leather industry network, but they were also part of the transport business with saddles and harness leather, part of the industrial business with belting and other industrial leathers, and part of the footwear industry with soles and uppers.

All three were changing rapidly. In transport the horse and cart was being replaced by the automobile and bicycle, in industry rubber belting was found to be better than leather, and in footwear leather soles were under attack from synthetic or composition. And with lifestyle changes footwear was needed softer and lighter, hence the enthusiasm for chrome tanning.

Contrast the network picture from the Booth position, surveying the evolution of the leather industry embedded in their trading and shipping businesses, and linked to their knowledge of and investment in technical progress and innovation.

Based on this wider network picture Booths were able to continuously adjust their network position, and expand the network size to fit the demands and changes of the different areas of the business. Some relationships diminished in importance, and in some instances were terminated, as with Wolff, but others were strengthened and emphasized. They were willing to create a new network position if they felt a new area was of importance and they would do this by new partnerships, strengthening weak relations, or acquisitions. Whereas the Leeds tanners had become defined by their network position Booths became empowered by theirs.

The situation for traditional US tanners was somewhat similar and Donham (1930) makes it clear how difficult the first decades of the 20th century were for US tanners with rampant overcapacity and loss of market volumes. Between 1914 and 1926 sole leather volumes declined by 25%, harness leather by 60% and belting leather by 12%. Competition from substitutes fell hardest on the heavy leather industry. This big decline led to overcapacity in an industry already beset by problems of fluctuating raw material prices - "a number of tanners have expressed a preference for poker".

Donham's influential analysis was quite scathing. He thought many tanners were doomed to failure because of ownership, age and product line. "There are still many privately owned small and scattered tanneries," wrote Donham in 1930. "Generally speaking they are old, inefficient, and useless for any purposes other than the manufacture of high-cost, low-quality leather. They could not be sold except at enormous capital loss . . . Members of the family eke out a satisfactory living from salaries, and family pride is strong, the business having been handed down for generations . . . [Donham 1930:479]"

Again this was against a background of a 10% increase in the shoe production in the US and a 20% increase in population. So while tanners like Booths continued to make their mark on the world scene with the new chrome leather those who had a more limited network picture struggled. When US leather decided it could control the raw market by establishing in 1893 they did not take into account that they were as much controlled by their relationships as in control of them. Instead of being in control of the abattoirs selling them hides the Packers retaliated and refused to sell when hides were of low value. Instead they stockpiled while they built new relationships with the chemical company and technology houses, allowing them to start tanning themselves. In trying to force a reduction in capacity and stabilisation in hide prices US leather members had led to an increase in capacity and no benefit in supply. Not only did the packers react and move into tanning themselves, so did some of the shoemakers. United States Leather Company spent most of its first ten years in the courts fighting shareholders over the distribution of diminishing assets.

CONCLUSIONS

The third network paradox (Ford, 2003, 31) says that the more a company strives to control its network the more it becomes controlled by it. For the 70 years we have studied it is apparent that Booths tried to maintain a loose but co-coordinated network able to be responsive and innovative. To some degree they saw themselves as being in the business of networking.

Booths stated policy in 1920 was to have a "widespread but generally inter-connected business, which provides a well balanced structure". Added to that must be put their continued flexibility within a wide vision of their area of activity, and dynamic approach to adjusting their position within their network and their dyadic relationships within it.

It would appear that they understood Blankenberg's (1992) fourteen categories and new well how to consider the opinions and likely actions of suppliers and customers and their suppliers and customers. With Schultz and others they were willing to bring in consultants and other outsiders who could bring a new perspective to the technology, and they ruthlessly used government organisations, banking services, and the diplomatic service to help and advice in their global development.

One interesting aspect is the thought that family hierarchies and tight social groupings with similar viewpoints, but with individual network pictures, might be particularly capable of evolving a business network into one which is both unique and creative. This could be an appropriate way to study the large Indian family businesses such as the TATA group, or the Chinese family and "guanxi" way of working.

It is also apparent that a business, even one who might be classed as "network conscious", needs to look at a great number of networks and be aware of developments in all of them. This network auditing would help them prepare for future structural, industry, or market changes.

If the tanners of Leeds had been more watchful of events in their transportation network, industrial manufacturing network, as well as their own leather industry network they might have foreseen changes in time to move over to chrome tanning and into new markets. As it was, they found themselves trapped in rapidly declining markets. They did not have the linkages to new markets or to new technologies needed to secure their future. A strong tanning industry did survive in Leeds and still exists in the 21st century, albeit reduced in size. But these were born of new factories set up mostly after the First World War to meet the continued demand for chrome tanned shoe leather.

The US Leather Company did not survive in the Dow for long. In its network activity it failed to eliminate competition, failed to stabilize prices, and lost a good deal "through the inflexibility which its size brought to it".

There is considerable evidence that had these same US tanners had a different network picture and had they looked more to exports, product development and to marketing the outcomes could have been different.

Michael Redwood
October 2003

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¹ Knapp, Natur und Wesen der gerberei und des Leders, Munich 1858
² www.mikeredwood.com see timeline
³ Schultz, US Patent 291 784 (1884): US Patent 291 782 (1884)
⁴ Near the Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge just south of the current City Hall set aside for tanning in 1664. Remained for 275 years.

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