Early years
In 1880, Frank C. and Edmund B. Ball borrowed close to $200 from their uncle George Harvey Ball, founder and first president of Keuka College, to purchase the Wooden Jacket Can Company, a small manufacturing business located in Buffalo, New York. Soon afterward, William, Lucius, and George Ball joined their brothers, Frank and Edmund, in Buffalo. (Years later, the brothers reciprocated their uncle's early assistance by providing financial support to Keuka College.)
The Ball brothers' company made tin cans encased in wooden jackets to hold kerosene, paints, or varnishes. Because the acid used to refine kerosene caused corrosion in tin, the brothers decided to use glass for the inserts of the wood-jacketed cans. Initially, they bought the glass containers from a factory in Poughkeepsie, New York. Around 1885 a group of Belgian glassblowers who were passing through Buffalo encouraged the Ball brothers to build their own factory. The Ball brothers purchased land in East Buffalo, where they built a two-story brick building for the stamping works and a one-story frame factory for the glass works. Although a fire destroyed an early glass factory in Buffalo, the brothers rebuilt and expanded the business. To keep the new factory's furnace operating at full capacity, the company introduced new products and made improvements to its glass and metal manufacturing processes.
Around 1884, when the brothers discovered that the Mason Improved fruit jar patent was due to expire, their company began manufacturing canning jars in their glassworks. The Ball Brothers' jars, which were produced in half-gallon, pint, and midget sizes, were manufactured during 1884, 1885, and 1886. "Buffalo" jar lids were produced in a Ball Brother metal fabricating factory. The brothers decided to add their logo onto the surface of the glass jars, which were amber or aqua (blue-green) at the time.
On February 13, 1886, the five brothers incorporated the business under the name Ball Brothers Manufacturing Company. About the same time the factory in Buffalo was destroyed by fire in 1886, the brothers began to consider moving their business closer to natural gas supplies. While on a business trip in Cleveland, Ohio, Frank heard about the natural gas boom in Findlay, Ohio. After visiting the town, he told Edmund about the economic advantages of using natural gas instead of coal for manufacturing glass. Edmund visited several towns in the gas fields, including Muncie, Indiana. The two brothers decided to make a more extensive trip to investigate the possibility of establishing a glass factory closer to an abundant supply of natural gas. They briefly had doubts about extending beyond Buffalo, but decided to explore the use of natural gas as a means of expanding their glass-making business.
Frank and Edmund first visited in Fostoria, Ohio, where they were enthusiastically welcomed. The next stop was Bowling Green, Ohio. After a night in town, Edmund returned to Buffalo, but Frank remained. After Frank had been in Bowling Green for about a week, he received a telegram from James Boyce, a Muncie businessman. Frank, who had become weary of Bowling Green, was ready for a change and "decided to run down to Muncie and see what they had to offer." As Frank recalled his early discussions with Muncie's town leaders, "There was nothing about the town that particularly appealed to me, but the men were all courteous, kind, and businesslike." Frank agreed to a proposal that offered the Ball brothers 7 acre of land for a factory site, a gas well, and $5,000 in cash to encourage the move to Muncie. In addition, city officials agreed to provide a railroad connection to the brothers' new facilities. By September 1887 construction had begun on the Muncie factory and the Ball brothers began plans to move their glass manufacturing operations from New York. Frank remained in Muncie to get the factory up and running, while Edmund closed the glass factory in Buffalo, then moved to Muncie to join Frank. Their brothers, William and George, remained in Buffalo to operate the stamping works and a factory in Bath, New York.
In 1888 the company opened its first glass manufacturing facility in Muncie. On February 18 fires were started in the new factory's furnace; on March 1 its first glass products were made. The first products to be manufactured in the Muncie factory were oil containers and lamp chimneys, not fruit jars. By 1889 the Ball company's headquarters and its glass and metal manufacturing operations had moved to Muncie. The other Ball brothers moved to Indiana in the 1890s. George moved to Muncie in 1893, William arrived in 1897, and Lucius, a company shareholder and a physician, moved to Muncie in 1894.
In the late nineteenth century, the company continued to grow and prosper, but not without experiencing some challenges. Fires at its Muncie factories and warehouses in 1891 and 1898 damaged its facilities, which were eventually rebuilt. Despite the economic panic of 1893, the company was able to produce 22 million fruit jars for the year beginning in September 1894, and 37 million jars by 1897. When natural gas supplies in the area began to diminish, the Ball brothers installed gas converters to use Indiana coal in their factories and continued manufacturing operations. The company's F. C. Ball machine, patented in 1898, introduced mass production into its glass-blowing process and gave it a competitive market advantage. By 1905 the company was producing 60 million canning jars per year and had acquired other glass manufacturers, expanding its operations to include seven factories in addition to its main facilities at Muncie.
In a continuation of the company's difficulties in Muncie, workers organized with Local 200 (Glass Workers) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) at the main facility, and went on strike in March 1910 in advocacy of wage increases. A settlement was quickly reached on March 29, but company management reneged on the agreement and threatened to declare a lockout.[3][4] The strike continued, but was weakened by the refusal of machinists affiliated with the American Federation of Labor to join the strike. By the end of April, the strike was over.[5]
Diversification
For over 90 years, Ball continued to be a family-owned business. Renamed the Ball Brothers Company in 1922, it remained well known for manufacturing fruit jars, lids, and related products for home canning. The company also entered into other business ventures. Because the four main components of their core product line of canning jars included glass, zinc, rubber, and paper, the Ball company acquired a zinc strip rolling mill to produce metal lids for their glass jars, manufactured rubber sealing rings for the jars, and acquired a paper mill to fabricate the packaging used in shipping their products. The company also acquired tin, steel, and later, plastic companies.
The Ball company faced additional challenges and opportunities during the Great Depression and World War II. Prior to 1933, Ball was the largest domestic manufacturer of home canning jars. In 1939 it manufactured 54% of all the canning jars made in the US. A drop in demand for the jars during the 1930s led the Ball brothers to begin manufacturing other types of jars and bottles for commercial use, and eventually expanding into other lines of business. During World War II the company's operations were converted to produce shells and machine parts for the military.
After the war, Ball's glass-making business was hindered by an antitrust case in which the company was one of several defendants. The legal case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The final decision, which was handed down in 1947, restricted Ball's ability to acquire other glass manufacturers and other businesses producing glass-making machinery without prior court approval. In 1949 decreasing demand for canning jars caused the company to suffer its first net operating loss. With legal restrictions on the company's ability to expand its glass-making business and declining demand for its canning jars, Ball company executives decided to diversify the company to achieve growth.
Throughout the 1950s the Ball company explored expanding into the aerospace industry. The
