Atlas Press Co. was a tool company that manufactured popular brands of

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

tools from 1920 to the mid-1970s. Many of their products received wide coverage in ''

Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (often abbreviated as ''PM'' or ''PopMech'') is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do it yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation an ...

'' and ''

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

'' at the time.

History

In 1911, the inventor Gardner T. Eames of

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

filed for a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

on a new type of

arbor press An arbor press is a small hand-operated press. It is typically used to perform smaller jobs, such as staking, riveting A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft w ...

, but was unable to secure funding for production. Eames partnered with Herbert H. Everard to create the ''G.T. Eames Company'', under the agreement that the rights to the patent were to be shared between both men. The company started producing the press under the "Eames Presses" brand with some success. In 1913, Everard died, leaving his controlling share of the firm to his daughter and her husband, John Penniman. Eames eventually became disillusioned with the Pennimans' handling of the company and sold his shares to them for $5,000. Penniman subsequently moved the company to another location in Kalamazoo, renaming it to ''Atlas Press Company''. Eames opened a machine shop and continued to build and sell presses under the old trademark, which eventually led to conflict between the two parties, both of whom claimed exclusivity over the patent, as well as additional improvements made by Eames.

Patent dispute

In 1919 the Pennimans filed an unfair trade

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

against Eames (''Atlas Press Co. v. Eames''), claiming rights over the

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

, patent and improved design. The case was argued in front of the

Michigan Supreme Court The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is Michigan's court of last resort and consists of seven justices. The Court is located in the Michigan Hall of Justice at 925 Ottawa Street in Lansing, the s ...

, which ruled that Eames had to cease use of the trademark, but refusing the transfer of the improved press to the Atlas company.Michigan Reports, pp. 586-594

Later years

In 1920 the company began making and selling small machine tools, including drill presses and

lathe A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the w ...

s, as well as woodworking tools, such as

jointer A jointer or in some configurations, a jointer-planer (also known in the UK and Australia as a planer or surface planer, and sometimes also as a buzzer or flat top) is a woodworking machine used to produce a flat surface along a board's length. ...

s and

table saw A table saw (also known as a sawbench or bench saw in England) is a woodworking tool, consisting of a circular saw blade, mounted on an mandrel, arbor, that is driven by an electric motor (directly, by belt, by cable, or by gears). The drive ...

s. They were sold through the

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

catalog, some of them re-branded under the

Craftsman Craftsman may refer to: A profession *Artisan, a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative *Master craftsman, an artisan who has achieved such a standard that he may establish his own workshop and take o ...

name. In 1965, the company changed its name to Clausing Industrial, Inc. and divested its woodworking product lines to focus on industrial machinery. In 1985, the 600 Group acquired parts of Clausing. The Clausing brand is still used today. The 600 Group, which had earlier also acquired the British Colchester and T.S. Harrison lathe brands (in 1954 and 1971, respectively), also recombined the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

ing to include the Clausing Colchester (North America only) and Colchester Harrison names.

Notes

References

* {{cite book , author = Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court; various , title = Michigan Reports: Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of Michigan , publisher = Phelphs & Stevens, printers , year = 1920 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6F0aAAAAYAAJ

External links

Clausing Industrial

collecting articles about and for Atlas machine tools from 1941 to 1969.
The 600 Group
Machine tool builders Defunct manufacturing companies based in Michigan Defunct manufacturing companies based in Indiana