Between 1920 and 1940, Schramm, Inc. expanded significantly, fully transitioning from a company focused on repair and conversion to one primarily dedicated to manufacturing and marketing air compressors, tractors, pumps, engines, and hoist units.
Schramm moved its main office from Philadelphia to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and began manufacturing engine and electric motor-driven compressors in 1922, which were used by farmers, construction contractors, factories and utility companies for various tasks like spray painting, sand blasting, rock drilling, paving breaking, riveting and underground mining.
Photograph: The Joseph Kinzley Company of Hackensack, NJ using a mounted Schramm compressor for road work, circa 1925. See below for more photographs.
Schramm grew its reputation as an employee friendly company in a time when many industrial laborers looked to unions for fair treatment from employers. By 1924, Schramm began providing employees with paid vacations. Henry N. Schramm was elected president in 1925, and the company introduced sick benefits and life insurance in 1927. Shares of stock became available for purchase by employees in the 1930s. Efforts to maintain good relationships with employees would become a key for Schramm in maintaining a competent and engaged workforce.
During the Great Depression, Schramm had to reduce production. The company reduced pay for all employees, including the company president and they implemented a system which varied pay according to sales volume. Contracts for construction equipment from the federally funded Civilian Conservation Corps provided Schramm with much needed revenue.
During this period they expanded their international market, exporting compressors outside the U.S., their first overseas sale going to South America in 1921. They secured a patent for the 'EnBloc' compressor design in 1929, a design adopted by other companies during that time. They introduced the first diesel engine-driven portable compressors in 1933.
Even during the economic downturn, the company continued developing new products. Schramm introduced the Utility Line of compressors in 1934. Using industrial engine designs and components these compressors were lighter, smaller, and ran at higher speeds than previous designs. According to company literature, it was a product without compare among compressors on the market. The company’s innovative patents were licensed to other manufacturers providing an additional income during the economic downturn
While it struggled to survive the Depression, the company continued to innovate throughout the 1930s, introducing portable electric generators, emergency construction lighting machines, portable electric welders, railroad car air compressors, underground mine compressors and a self-propelled air compressor on crawler tracks in 1939.
In 1937, Schramm completed a 25,000 square foot assembly building in West Chester. Expansion that proved invaluable during the Second World War.
PHOTOGRAPHS : 1920 to 1940
