Many readers will remember the Art Metal Company that was an integral part of Jamestown’s economy for many years. Art Metal, beginning in 1888 as the Fenton Metallic Manufacturing Company, manufactured metal office furniture, especially for courthouses, banks, and libraries in its beginning. Filing cabinets of various configurations plus desks and chairs became the products of later years. Other early companies connected to what became Art Metal were the bicycle manufacturing and the early voting machine industry when it developed in Jamestown.

For many years Art Metal produced quality products that met the needs of the offices and businesses of this country, as well as, international businesses. Other companies were acquired that benefited the quality and quantity of the products of Art Metal. It was not just office furniture that came from the Jones and Gifford Avenue plants. An advertisement in 1920 entitled “Art Metal in Peace and in War” stated “Art Metal, because of its rugged strength; its resistance to fire and water and its efficiency in operation has long been the choice of the government in equipping our sea fighters.”

The ad included this information: “The battleships Florida, Utah, Colorado, Arkansas, Wyoming, Texas, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico, Maryland, and California; nearly 200 destroyers and over 100 Sub Chasers are completely equipped in Art Metal.”

The company continued to design and improve office furniture. Besides the ads about the quality of the furniture, the company also had to promote the new designs. To do this they published literature about “the modern office and efficiency.”

Beginning in 1919, “The Office Economist, A Monthly Magazine of Business Ideas for the Office,” was published. It contained information on a variety of business topics, from running an efficient office, by, of course, using Art Metal products, to advice on filing, getting training in commerce and industry and even “the art of dictation.” Automatic Voting Machine Company also educated the user of their equipment on how to use it and how it would improve voting efficiency at the polls. Remember the small models used to show people how to use the mechanical levers to vote?

In the Special Collection of the Fenton History Center is a run of “The Office Economist” from 1919 through 1959. Besides the advice on running a business and an efficient office, there are histories of business machines, biographies of men – and a few women – in business, plus helpful hints, such as when redecorating your office, science shows that pure white reflects 70 percent of the light falling on it, whereas, pale yellow reflects only 40 percent.

This publication is a good record of what Art Metal was producing for the office, as well as, an interesting history of the evolving business office over a 40-year period. Charles W. Simpson was the editor of “The Office Economist” from 1921 to his retirement Dec. 31, 1958. He had worked at Art Metal for 40 years starting as the assistant advertising manager and retiring as the director of advertising and sales promotion.