Personside - 50

En hypotese om, at denne ukendte Korff skulle være købmand Alexander Korff fra Kerteminde, holder ikke stik. Provst Bøgh beskriver i ”Skønne Efterretninger”, at denne havde fem børn i 1770, som ikke omfatter Hartvig og Johan. Kerteminde Byhistorie fortæller endvidere, at i 1804 skænkede købmandsfamilien Korff Langegade nummer 37 til kommunen.

The can industry was developing rapidly in this era in order to take advantage of the burgeoning market. While canning had previously existed as a cottage industry, where can making and canning were undertaken by the same company at the same location, growing demand and automation technology gave birth to separate enterprises. Fruit and vegetables processing plants sprang up in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and California. Pacific salmon was first canned on the Sacramento River in 1864 and on the Columbia River in 1866. In 1874, A. K. Shriver of Baltimore invented the pressure cooker which enabled canners to control temperatures accurately while cooking sealed cans—preventing them from exploding. The number of processing plants grew from less than one hundred in 1870 to nearly eighteen hundred at the turn of the century.

Meanwhile, can manufacturing became its own niche. The Norton Brothers Company of Chicago, for example, specialized in producing vegetable cans. In 1883, this company invented the semi-automatic body maker, which mechanically soldered seams on the side of the cans and increased production capacity to 2,500 cans per hour; a decade later it would reach 6,000 an hour.

Norton Brothers merged with 60 other firms, with 123 factories, to form the American Can Company in 1901. Edwin Norton became president of the new conglomerate and kept his headquarters at the original Norton plant in Illinois. Forbes magazine would, in 1941, call American Can a corporation that "shaped the daily lives of man in the United States." In 1904, Norton left American Can to form the Continental Can Company. That same year, the Sanitary Can Company was formed from three New York can companies and began production of the sanitary—or open top—can which, since the lid was crimped on after filling, required no soldering. By the 1920's, the hole and cap model can was history.

As production increased, so did the number of things you could purchase in cans. The investment canners had made in their production lines required that they find new foods to can and keep their businesses running year round. Campbell's condensed soups were introduced nationally in 1899 and sold for a dime. The red and white labels were inspired by Cornell University's football jerseys and the gold medallion at center represented a gold medal the soup won at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. Tuna fish was first canned in 1909 when one processor ran out of the sardines he usually canned. By then, 63 different kinds of meat were available in cans. Citrus fruits and tomato juice first appeared in cans around 1920.

Industry's inventions brought greater success, new capabilities, and more competition to the canning market. The railroad transferred goods across the country. A new type of labor force emerged to work the production lines. Conveyor belts and automatic machinery such as washers and fillers moved the products through at astonishing rates. Still more machines shucked corn and peas, trimmed kernels off corncobs, pitted cherries, even peeled and sliced fruit. Factories hummed and Americans bought more and more quantities and varieties of canned goods. The onset of winter previously had meant that households had to put up provisions—dried meats and fruits, potatoes stored in root cellars, and vegetables canned at home. Now an endless variety of foods were available year round. Some were so exotic and foreign that they were being tried by American consumers for the first time.

American Can Co.

This container industry giant was created in 1901 through the merger of dozens of plants around the country, including some in the Chicago area. Although it was not headquartered in Chicago, American Can became an important actor in the local economy during the early twentieth century. From the beginning of the century through the 1970s, the company employed thousands of men and women (the local workforce stood at about 2,700 in 1934 and 3,000 in 1974) at several plants around the city. During the final decades of the century, American Can diversified, became less important as a local employer, and eventually ceased to exist as an independent entity.

GOVERNMENT SUES AMERICAN CAN CO.; Seeks Dissolution of $88,000,000 Corporation in Anti-Trust Action at Baltimore. WANTS IT SPLIT INTO UNITS Petition Opposes Separation on Pro Rata Basis ;- Head of Concern Feels Sure of Victory.

NYTimes November 30, 1913, Sunday

BALTIMORE, Nov. 29. -- Suit was filed here to-day in the United States District Court to dissolve the American Can Company, the so-called Tin Can Trust, which the Department of Justice alleges controls a large percentage of business of the United States in tin cans, containers, and packages of tin.