Norton Abrasives of

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...

, USA is the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of

abrasive An abrasive is a material, often a mineral, that is used to shape or finish a workpiece through rubbing which leads to part of the workpiece being worn away by friction. While finishing a material often means polishing it to gain a smooth, reflec ...

s for commercial applications, household, and automotive refinishing usage. Norton Company was founded in 1885 by a group of ceramists and entrepreneurs from Worcester, Massachusetts. The group set out to manufacture the first mass-produced, precision-made grinding wheel to fulfill the burgeoning U.S.

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...

industry's growing need for abrasives.
, Norton Consumer: A History Of Norton. In 1990 it was purchased by

Saint-Gobain Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Norton specializes in the manufacture of abrasive products for applications in the autobody, construction, welding/industry, and marine/composite markets as well as for contractors and

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

consumers.

Origins and History

The roots of the Norton Company begin with in a pottery shop Worcester, opened in 1858 by Franklin Norton and his older cousin Frederick Hancock. The shop specialized in

redware Redware as a single word is a term for at least two types of pottery of the last few centuries, in Europe and North America. Red ware as two words is a term used for pottery, mostly by archaeologists, found in a very wide range of places. Howeve ...

and

stoneware Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. Whether vi ...

pottery. In 1873, an employee of the shop,

Sven Pulson Sven (in Danish and Norwegian, also Svend and also in Norwegian most commonly Svein) is a Scandinavian first name which is also used in the Low Countries and German-speaking countries. The name itself is Old Norse for "young man" or "young ...

, invented a Grinding wheel that was superior to most on the market at that time. This new grinding wheel was made by mixing

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...

with emery and water. As the need for grinding wheels was expanding, Frank Norton patented Pulson's invention and began manufacturing it. By 1885, Frank Norton's discouraging health and Frederick Hancock's lack of interest in the new product resulted in the need to sell the wheel manufacturing business. Pulson left the pottery shop in 1880, replaced by his brother-in-law John Jeppson. When Frank Norton's business came on the market, he was quick to purchase it. Partnering with co-workers, Walter Messer and Charles Allen;

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a Private university, private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1865 in Worcester, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities and now has 14 ac ...

professors, Milton Prince Higgins and

George I. Alden George I. Alden (22 April 1843 – 13 September 1926) was a mechanical engineer and academic innovator. Alden was raised in Templeton, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School and taught mechanical engineering for twenty-e ...

; and Washburn & Moen employees Fred Harris Daniels and Horace A. Young. The partners built a new factory on the outskirts of the city, in the Greendale neighborhood. The factory was not only important to the company for its innovation but also for its proximity to two major railways for shipping. The Greendale factory stands to this day. During the late 1890s, corporate decision-making proved conservative until it was assured the company would succeed. Until that time,

dividends A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...

were frequently forgone and many of the owners declined to draw a salary. Also pivotal to Norton's early growth was a focus on

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

. The company introduced a series of pamphlets and related literature, which detailed the intricacies of each wheel and advised users on benefits for desired applications. By the mid-1890s, Norton stocked the largest inventory of grinding wheels in the world, subsequently beginning distribution in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

(1887),

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(1904), and soon after, across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

.
Funding Universe: Norton Company History. One of the largest keys to the growth of the company was Norton's 1900 expansion into the Machine tool, machine tools industry. Through partnership with Charles H. Norton, the company founded the Norton Grinding Company division. The company specialized in the production of stationary grinding machines, an alternative to expensive workmen, which were capable of producing high volume, working with extremely heavy materials, and grinding with an unbelievable tolerance. Initially, with minimal product need, Norton's Grinding division saw little success, but the American industrial needs of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and the American automobile industry boom began a period of explosive growth. In 1904, Norton employee Aldus Higgins invented a water-cooled furnace, which was crucial to the company's success at the time. In 1914, Henry Ford's purchase of thirty-five Norton Grinders prompted Ford to remark that "the abrasive processes are basically responsible for our ability to produce cars to sell for less than a thousand dollars. Were it not for these processes these same cars would cost at least five thousand dollars, if indeed they could be made at all." With 95 percent of an automobile's moving parts requiring grinding, the automotive industry soon became Norton's biggest customer. With a resistance to grinding innovation, Norton gradually lost most of its industry market share by the mid-1950s. In 1931, Norton completed its first acquisition, when it purchased the Behr-Manning company of Watervliet, New York. This purchase adde
coated abrasives
an
sandpaper
to Norton's line, which, going forward, would be two of Norton's more successful products. In the mid-1950s, with sales over $30 million, Behr-Manning was fully absorbed into Norton. In 1962, Norton became a publicly held company. Descendants of founders John Jeppson and Milton Higgins managed the company until the 1970s, including

John Jeppson II John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

. Since 2009, Norton has been a chief sponsor and abrasive supplier for both the United States Men's and Women's Olympic

luge A luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet-first. A luger steers by using the calf muscles to flex the sled's runners or by exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Racing sleds weigh for ...

teams. Both teams competed under Norton sponsorship in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
US Olympic Luge Sponsors and Suppliers. Norton was also a leader in the design and building of

grinding machine A grinding machine, often shortened to grinder, is a power tool (or machine tool) used for grinding. It is a type of machining using an abrasive wheel as the cutting tool. Each grain of abrasive on the wheel's surface cuts a small chip from th ...

s for

mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

Products

Norton's key areas of manufacture in the abrasives market are bonded abrasives,

coated abrasive upright=1.35, Sheets of sandpaper with different grit sizes (40 (coarse), 80, 150, 240, 600 (fine)). Sandpaper and glasspaper are names used for a type of coated abrasive that consists of sheets of paper or cloth with abrasive material glued t ...

s, non-woven abrasives, superabrasives, and specialt
non-Abrasive products

Environmental Record

In 1988, Norton instituted an industrial

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The Energy recycling, recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability t ...

plan for which it has received a number of awards. Norton's retail abrasive products are packaged with 100% recycled materials containing 25%

post consumer waste Post-consumer waste is a waste type produced by the end consumer of a material stream; that is, where the waste-producing use did not involve the production of another product. The terms of pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled materials are ...

.
Norton Abrasive Green Achievements. In 2009, Saint-Gobain was recognized with an

Energy Star Energy Star (trademarked ''ENERGY STAR'') is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of pr ...

Partner of the Year award by the U.S. EPA
Energy Star Corporate Partners. as well as a Global 100 Sustainable Company
, 2009 Global 100 Sustainable Company List. designation by the World economic forum, World Economic Forum. In day-to-day operations, a number of Saint-Gobain Abrasive plants have completed or are in the process of completing

ISO 9000 The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 90 ...

quality certification and use FSC paper from managed forests.

References

Bibliography

* * Cheape, Charles (1985). ''Family Firm To Modern Multinational Norton Company a New England Enterprise'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard University Press, LCC
84010824

External links