Armor and Company has its roots in Milwaukee, where in 1863 Philip D. Armor joined John Plankinton (founder of Layton and Plankinton Packaging in 1852) to found Plankinton, Armor and Company. Together, the partners expanded their meatpacking operation in Milwaukee to Blankinton and established branches in Chicago and Kansas City and an export home in New York City. Armor and Plankinton dissolved their association in 1884 with Operation Milwaukee which eventually became the Cudahy Packing Company. In its early years, Armor sold all kinds of consumer products made from animals: meat, glue, oil, fertilizer, hairbrushes, buttons, olmargarine, and medicines, made from slaughterhouse by-products. Armor operates in an environment free from unions, health inspections, or government regulations. Accidents were common.
Armor was famous for the low wages it offered to line workers. He fought unions by banning well-known union activists and breaking strikes in 1904 and 1921 by employing African Americans and recent immigrants as strike saboteurs. The company did not fully unionize until the late 1930s, when the Meatpacking Federation succeeded in creating an interracial industrial federation as part of the Conference of Industrial Organizations. During the Spanish-American War (1898), Armor sold 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) of beef to the US Army.An Army inspector examined the meat two months later and found that 751 cases had gone bad and had contributed to the food poisoning of thousands of soldiers. In the 2000s, a young Dale Carnegie, a representative from the South Omaha sales district, became the company’s best-selling salesperson, an experience that was based on his best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. . In the early 1920s, Armor ran into financial trouble and the family sold its largest stake to financier Frederick H. Prince.
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The company maintained its position as one of the largest in the United States during the Great Depression and the sharp increase in demand during World War II. During this period, it expanded its operations in the United States; At its peak, the company employed fewer than 50,000 people. In 1948, Armor, which had been making soap for years as a by-product of the meat packaging process, developed a deodorizing soap by adding the bactericidal agent AT-7 to soap. This scent reduces body odor by reducing bacteria on the skin. The new soap was called Dial because of its 24-hour protection against odor-causing bacteria. Armor featured the soap with a full-page advertisement using scented ink in the Chicago Tribune. During the 1950s, Dial became the best-selling deodorant soap in the United States. The company has adopted the motto “Aren’t you glad you’re using Dial? Wouldn’t you like everyone else to?” 1953. In the 1960s, the Dial brand was expanded to include deodorants and shaving creams.
Due to the popularity and strong sales of the Dial brand, fueled by advertisements in magazines, radio and television, Armor Consumer Products was founded as Armor-Dial, Inc. in 1967. In 1958, William Wood Prince, a cousin of Frederick Prince, became president of Armor and Company. Historic Armor and Company sign in Fort Worth, Texas; The company closed its operations there in 1962. In 1970, Armor and Company was acquired by Chicago-based Greyhound Corporation, after a hostile takeover attempt by General Host Corporation a year earlier. In 1971, Greyhound moved Armor headquarters from Chicago to Phoenix, Arizona, to a new $ 83 million building. Stevie Nicks’ father, father of rock icon Jess Nicks, who was CEO of Greyhound, became president of Armor. In 1978, Greyhound sold Armor Pharmaceuticals to Revlon.
Revlon sold its pharmaceutical unit in 1985 to the Rorer Company (later Rhône-Poulenc Rorer). Forest Laboratories acquired the rights to Armor Thyroid from Rhone-Poulenc Rorer in 1991. The remaining assets of Armor Pharmaceuticals are now part of CSL Behring. Armor’s Factor VIII “Factor” was widely reported to have infected thousands of hemophiliacs worldwide with HIV during the 1980s; There have also been reports that the company concealed evidence that the product was defective. As a result, there have been trials, investigations and criminal charges. Greyhound’s rapid diversification and frequent unit restructuring resulted in erratic profitability. In 1981, John W. Titts was appointed president of Greyhound and began selling unprofitable subsidiaries. After the meat packers
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