The Biggest Black Manufacturing Firm in America |

Y’all know I am a fan of Leroy Anderson. (The Syncopated Clock, The Typewriter.) So, this song about horse and buggy is perfect to lead off today’s blog.

And, why a horse and buggy? Because today’s tale describes the CR (“Rich”) Patterson & Sons Company; it’s origin was the production of buggies for the horse and buggy set. The firm was based in Greenfield, OH (which was a stop on the Underground Railroad), about 270 miles south of Detroit. (Rich Patterson had moved there from Virginia to avoid the slave-catchers [who really didn’t care if they were catching slaves, since they assumed all Blacks were slaves] in 1861 and to preserve his family.)

And, after seeing Henry Ford start his factory, his son, Frederick Douglass Patterson, decided that he could create a car company too. Which could have been the very First Black owned car manufacturing company.

Patterson’s production yielded horseless carriages, basically two door coupes. And, back then, there were a plethora of firms attempting to corner the car market. Even though his firm managed to produce 100 of those cars, the production timeframe for each vehicle was two weeks. As opposed to the 90 minutes it took Henry to roll out a Model T.

(It seems that Patterson had the same problem with Ford that our medical device firm had with National Medical Care. Basically, we were “equal” competitors except for the fact that there was an increase of 3 digits on their firm compared yt my fortune (and also for Patterson v. Ford); that was clearly the key to our being truly competitive.)

So, Patterson did what seemed logical to him. He went after (what he perceived to be) the burgeoning school bus market. (His other choice was to producing military trucks, since The World War was the consuming issue of the day.)

Patterson figured with the growth of rural schools- and the need to transport the kids to class- this would be the perfect market, since the horse-drawn carriages were not well suited for the rural school market.

This idea was perfect! Patterson became the largest Black-owned manufacturing business in the US, with 70 employees (and his firm was integrated!). As opposed to his stunted car production rate, Patterson shipped out 500 busses a month- which also meant that he was supplying about 1/3 of the school busses used in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. (By now, the firm had changed its name to the Greenfield Bus Body Company.) And, those busses lasted- some were still around in the 1950s.

But, it was the Depression- and the death of Frederick- that eventually led to the firm’s demise. (Banks would not loan the firm money once Frederick was out of the picture.) The firm had even tried relocating to Gallipolis, but by 1939, the plant was shuttered.