John Russell started his cutlery manufacturing business in Greenfield, Massachusetts, about 1834, at the “Green River Works” along the Green River. He moved his business in 1870, to the newly-planned industrial city, Turners Falls, Massachusetts. In 1880, 51% of the people who worked there in factories were employed by the cutlery. In this photograph taken around 1890, there are both men and boys who worked in the Grinding Room. Russell employed a mix of native- and foreign-born workers from Ireland, Germany, and Eastern European countries who worked in the cutlery making over 150 kinds of pocket knives among other types of cutlery. By 1899, 28 states, including Massachusetts, had set a minimum age limit of 12 for manufacturing work, and a concerted reform campaign to ban all child labor under the age of 16. Around 1900, labor reforms would reduce the number of hours children could work to 58 per week.
Russell Cutlery, photographer. John Russell Cutlery Grinding Room Employees. Photograph. ca. 1890. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l06-033/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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