20 March 1933 “Dreams of Summer: Watermelon Rind Pickles and Bicycles and the Tale of an American Company”

It was so warm and lovely yesterday, 70 F (21 C) and it felt like a Summer day. I had tea with hubby and a friend at our local tea shop, their windows open and the breeze of the town mill pond blowing in. I  planted some cold temperature Pansies in my window boxes. My heart flutters for Summer. Therefore I thought I’d post about Summery things.

Let’s start with this lovely recipe for watermelon pickles. I adore watermelon pickles and in our current economic times, the cost of such dear Summer fruit is offset by the use of the entire thing. No waste when one pickles the rind.

Here is the recipe from one of my 1930’s cookbooks with lovely pictures to help you on your way.

The warm weather has me eyeing my bicycle as a fun activity rather than just a mode of sometimes transportation.This fun cartoon from the 1930’s was part of a movement to increase bicycle use to boost the economy. At the time, many families had had to lose or sell their automobiles. They could also be a boon to homemakers or teens who no longer had cars to borrow for outings.

This cartoon also depicts the two wheels as silver dollars, such as this 1934 version. In 1933, actually, there were no minted silver dollars. Here is why:

“Introduced in December of 1921, the Peace dollar, designed by medalist Anthony de Francisci, was promulgated to commemorate the signing of formal peace treaties between the United States on the one hand, and Germany and Austria on the other, thus officially ending America's World War I hostilities with these two countries. In 1922 the Mint made silver dollar production its top priority, causing other denominations to be produced sparingly if at all that year. Production ceased temporarily after 1928; original plans apparently called for only a one year suspension, but this was extended by the Great Depression. Mintage resumed in 1934, but for only two years.”

But, they would still have been in circulation at this time. And so make a great foil for a ‘Buy-cycle’ wheel demonstrating a boost to the American economy.

It is of interest to note that these Silver Peace Dollars were, like many silver coins of the time prior to the mid 1960’s, 90% silver and 10% copper. That means in today’s value, this one dollar coin would have the value of around $32.00 at the current price of silver. However, a dollar bill would simply be worth a dollar. And when one looks at inflation, one dollar in 1933 would buy, today you would need $17.50 for each of those dollars to buy the same product. An interesting way to look at inflation and stores of value.

Of course bikes, such as the ever popular Schwinn, were still manufactured in the USA at that time and therefore would be a boost to increase the need for jobs at its American plant.

The 1930’s Schwinn, I am happy to say, look rather similar to my vintage 50’s bike. Though the color of my teal blue bike is more 50’s, I can still feel the vintage gal this summer coasting around town and to the beach as usual.

This year, 1933, was the introduction of the first ‘Balloon Tires’. That is a tire with an inner tube, much as we use today. Prior to that date, bike tires were simply just that, the tire you filled with air.

I recall my father telling me that when he was a child in the War years (WWII) rubber was confiscated for the war effort. Thus they filled their tires with hay to keep them firm. Had they simply had the old pre 1933 tires, they would have been able to fill them without need of an inner tube. Though all those tires were probably already taken for the war effort.

The following images and text come from the original 1933 Arnold, Schwinn Company catalog. These models were offered both with and without balloon tires.

Schwinn 1933 Bicycle Catalog

B 10E Motorbike Fully Equipped

Frame: 18x 22 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: No. 1 Bucket.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.
Equipment: As illustrated

B 9 Motorbike

Frame: 18x 22 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: No. 1 Bucket.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.

B 4 Camelback

Frame: 18x 22 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: No. 1 Bucket.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.

B 3 Ladies’ Model

Frame: 18 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: Ladies comfort.
Handlebars: No. 5 Chromium
Pedals: No. 9 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.

B 1 1/2 Motorbike

Frame: 16 x 20 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: No. 1 Bucket.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.

B 1 1/2 E Motorbike

Frame: 16 x 20 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: No. 1 Bucket.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.
Equipment: As illustrated.

B 1 Camelback

Frame: 16 x 20 inches.
Tires: 26 x 2 1/8″ Cord Balloon.
Saddle: Bucket type.
Handlebars: Chromium finish with brace
Pedals: No. 10 Torrington.
Guards: Chromium finish.
Rims: Deep drop center chromium finish
Color: Black with red trim. Optional red and white or blue and white.
Coaster brake: Optional.

#R Racer

Frame: 20, 22 or 24 inches.
Tires: Racing 28 x 1 1/8 inch.
Saddle: Racing  type.
Handlebars: Racing type, chromium finish.
Pedals: Racing type.
“Designed and built to meet the exacting requirements of racing, this sturdy, easy running wheel will give a good account of itself anywhere.”

Schwinn Built Bicycles…

“have been nationally known for more than thirty-five years as staunch, high grade, easy running wheels. Their reputation is backed by the long and honorable record of Arnold, Schwinn & Co. Since 1895 these famous bicycles have been built in this huge, modern factory with no change of organization or management. Naturally, this wealth of manufacturing experience is reflected in the quality of the product.”

Schwinn was started in the 1890’s in Chicago by a German Immigrant who received backing from a German American meat Packer. The new company coincided with the new bicycle craze hitting America (imported from our European cousins).  The Schwinn company had thirty factories turning out thousands of bikes every day. Bicycle output in the United States grew to over a million units per year by the turn of the 19th to 20th century.

By 1905 bicycle sales nation wide had been reduced %25 due to the increase production and availability of the automobile.  Many smaller firms were either bankrupt or bought up by the larger companies. Schwinn bought up more small concerns and added a motorcycle division which became Excelsior-Henderson.

With the coming Crash of ‘29 most such companies were bust and almost all the American motorcycle companies were gone, including the new Excelsior-Henderson. So, Schwinn’s son, now running the company, went to Europe to study their more stronger bicycle innovations. He returned this year, 1933, and made the Schwinn B-10E Motorbike. It was not actually a motorized bike, but had an area that looked like an engine and included wider tires with inner tubes, a light, fenders, and a bell. This would eventually become the Cruiser or Beach Cruiser we know today.

In the 1950’s, European import of bikes began to dominate the American market. The lighter weight British bikes made up 95% of those imports. The American Companies were having trouble competing with the lower cost bikes available from war-torn Europe and Britain. So In August 1955:

the Eisenhower administration implemented a 22.5% tariff rate for three out of four categories of bicycles. However, the most popular adult category, lightweight or 'racer' bicycles, were only raised to 11.25%. The administration noted that the U.S. industry offered no direct competition in this category, and that lightweight bikes competed only indirectly with balloon-tire or cruiser bicycles. The share of the US market taken by foreign-made bicycles dropped to 28.5% of the market, and remained under 30% through 1964. Despite the increased tariff, the only structural change in foreign imports during this period was a temporary decline in bicycles imported from Great Britain in favor of lower-priced models from Holland and Germany. In 1961, after a successful appeal by bicycle importers, the Eisenhower tariffs were declared invalid by the Court of U.S. Customs Appeals, and President Kennedy imposed new a new tariff rate at 50% on foreign-made bicycles, a rate which remained in place until 1964.

After Kennedy, however, our country began to change as far as imports and tariffs were concerned. And sadly by the late 1970’s, the continued inflation of our dollar in this country led to labor disputes. High costs of living due to inflation combined with stagnant pay and harder to compete with imports prices, (no longer made competitive and fair with U.S. tariffs) 1400 assembly workers walked off the job for 13 weeks.

Now even lower cost bicycles were imported from Asia and again, no tariffs were in place to make American companies have the ability to compete while giving a fair living wage, the company declined. It moved what remained of its manufacturing to Mississippi where they could be made cheaper. This factory continued to decline until it laid off its remaining 250 workers and closed for good in 1991.

In 1991 Schwinn, now completely getting products from overseas, tried to focus on Brand enhancement and moved into other towns. At this time, the smaller bike shops were filling the Mountain Bike craze and only led to hurt these small shops trying to get off the ground and of course provide jobs for locals.

“In September 2001, the Schwinn Company, its assets, and the rights to the brand, together with that of the GT Bicycle, was purchased at a bankruptcy auction by Pacific Cycle, a company previously known for mass-market brands owned by Wind Point Partners. In 2004, Pacific Cycle was in turn acquired by Dorel Industries.”

Dorel Industries is huge. It continual buys up and abosorbs bankrupt companies, made so by the current system of business as usual. And as an example of how huge such business get, here are the many other brands that Dorel sells under other names:

• Altra
• Ameriwood
• Babideal
• Baby Relax
• Bebeconfort
• Bertini
• Bootiq
• Cannondale
• Carina
• Cosco
• DHP
• Go Safe
• GT Bicycles
• InSTEP
• Iron Horse
• Maxi-Cosi
• Monbebe
• Mongoose
• Mother's Choice
• Quinny
• Ridgewood
• Roadmaster
• Safety 1st
• Schwinn
• System Build
• SUGOI
• Zuzu

Here are the owners and the earnings and worker totals:

Key people
Leo Schwartz (Founder)
Martin Schwartz (CEO)
Alan Schwartz
Jeffrey Schwartz
Jeff Segel

Revenue
US$ 2.484 billion (2010)

Net income
US$ 127.853 million (2010)

Total assets
US$ 2.096 billion (2010)

Employees
4,700 (2010)

That seems a very large amount of money to a few people. We see very few employees yet so much wealth accumulating to a few. All at the expense of a large concern that once created jobs and products in our own country which is simply just one of the many such companies absorbed by a corporation like this. It is news and information like this that makes me understand the 1% we hear speak of so much today.

This is  sad but seems rather a normal tale of the American business and its production. The last of our moves made both by Eisenhower and Kennedy to make a fair playing field with tariffs that would allow our country to compete with larger corporations who had no problem outsourcing jobs. I don’t want to end this summer post on a sad note, but it seems again whenever I follow the line of a story I find myself here again in a world focused more on profit margin than way of life.

It makes me see now how one could be on either side of things like wage strikes. How some would see workers as selfish for wanting more and that they were the cause of a company going under. All the while, the increase in inflation would simply make your current pay really less, as food and fuel costs rise (sound familiar?) and the company could not compete because of the removal of tariffs that supported American business over foreign imports.

The American company stopped being an American company and cared little for the country it was in as it could go to Asia and make it so much cheaper to sell to all of us. And then we happily lapped it up as our own manufacture and thus labor and pay became less due to it.

It is a sad state indeed. Here in the 1930’s strikes and labor rights are not viewed as they were in the 1960’s. There was no ‘oh look at those hippys’ as here it is seen as right and just that those who have worked hard with a company should earn a fair wage. And it is also right that a company should feel the support of its government over overseas competition. But, I am afraid, we are so far removed from that idea with the vast changes and media ideas of what the previous decades stood for that most don’t even really understand the history of how our country once worked. I know, for me, it is continually a contradiction from what I once believed to what actually appears to be the truth.

I don’t want to end on a dour note, but I do want us to be aware of our world and how it once was. Whether or not it can ever be that way again, I don’t know? Every time I seem to go back a bit further it becomes a bit clearer. Who knows next year I might have to travel back to pre 1913 which is when the inflation of the American dollar began. That would be quite a journey.

I’ll close with this fun little movie advert shown at the pictures of these Swell Speed-O bikes as demonstrated by Spanky of Our Gang the Little Rascals. Happy Dreams of Summer and Happy Homemaking!