"You can make it, make it in Massachusetts"

Way back in the 1980's, the state's Department of Commerce ran a TV ad campaign touting all the businesses that "make it in Massachusetts." Most of the companies touted are defunct: Prime Computer, Polaroid...

But even in the 1980's, no one was really thinking of Massachusetts as a manufacturing hub - not like it was a few decades earlier, when I was growing up, and plenty of things were made here. Real things - shoes, clothing, industrial products. 

Worcester was a big manfacturing town. 

My father worked for Thomson Wire, a company that made fine wire which was sold to industries like automotive. It was fun to go visit Dad's office - walking distance from where we lived - and look in through the basement windows watching the wire-drawers coiling up the wire. You could hear the thrum of the coiling machines, and if you stood on the sidewalk, feel the machine vibrations. Thomson Wire was located right next to the train tracks so that the wire could be directly loaded onto boxcars. 

Spike, my father's closest friend worked for Norton, which made abrasive. My friends' fathers  - the ones who weren't cops or firemen - worked for Crompton and Knowles, Wyman-Gordon, Riley Stoker. 

The summer before college, I worked, alongside my friend Kim, at HH Brown Shoe - making, among other things, combat boots for the Vietnamese Air Force. While I was polishing combat boots, my friend Marie was working at Harrington-Richardson, which made M16's. I had other classmates who worked at Dapol Plastics, making cheap crappy toys. 

One of my prized possessions in late high school-early college was a large leather Davey's shoulder bag, which I bought in downtown Worcester at their factory store for a sharply discounted price.

And early each summer, our family made a trip to the knitting mills in Ware or Fall River to buy the year's supply of no-brand tee-shirts for the family at the factory outlet. (I still like striped tee-shirts.)

Some of the places mentioned here, companies that made things, are still around under different names, but with a much smaller or non-existent Massachusetts footprint.

But some things are still made in Massachusetts, and manufacturing represents about 10% of our state's economy.

A recent Boston Globe article rounded up some of our home-grown products.

Leather jackets are made in Fall River at Vanson Leathers. Their focus has been on jackets for motorcycle racers (and racer wannabes), but they've branched out into making wares for the likes of Comme des Garçons. 

Aviator-style sunglasses - could these be the ones the Joe Biden sports? - are made by Randolph Engineering for both the military and for civilian markets. 

Cambridge used to be a big candy producing town, and Junior Mints are still made in Kendall Square. Alas, other Cambridge candies like Squirel Nuts, Charleston Chews, Candy Cupboard Chocolates, and NECCO wafers are now made elsewhere. But just thinking about Junior Mints makes me want to go to the movies and buy me a package. 

The other day, I ran into an old friend and asked after his kids. Well, one of this sons works in marketing for Achusnet, which is still churning out Titleist golf balls in New Bedford. 

Pricey linens are manufactured in Fall River at John Matouk & Co. How pricey? In one of their lines, a lone flat queen-sized sheet will run you $549. Cheaper to support Massachusetts manufacturing with the purchase of a box of Junior Mints or a couple of Titleists. 

Apparently, Masschusetts does quite a bit when it comes to musical instruments. I knew about Zildjian cymbals, but we also have two companies - Verne Q Powell and Burkart - that make flutes and piccolos, out in the territory once dominated by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of computing fame. 

Not surprisingly, we have a couple of boat manufacturers. Boston Boat Works handcrafts luxury carbon fiber boats. Cape Cod Ship Building makes sailboats. 

The Electric Time Co. "makes and repairs ornate analog clocks...the company even has a wall clock at McMurdo Station in Antarctica."

Peculiarly, Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin, is home to GE Aerospace, which builds military jet engines, and to Durkee Mower, which makes Marshmallow Fluff.

Not to be outdone on the wacky manufacturing continuum, you can thank Worcester for the David Clark Company, which makes spacesuits and headsets for air traffic controllers, and for Polar Beverages, which bottles all sorts of sodas, including the sorts of sodas - like Orange Dry (always to be found in my fridge) - that used to be called tonic.

And while Worcester no longer makes shoes, Alden Shoes makes high end shoes and boots, and New Balance has two sneaker-making factories in the Commonwealth. Other footwear companies are HQ'd in this state - Reebok, Converse - but most of their sneaks are made overseas. (Reebok does make some stuff almost locally, in Rhode Island.) 

In keeping with their commitment to get rid of jobs, Amazon makes all of its warehouse robots in Massachusetts, so they're at least keeping some jobs locally.  (Boston Dynamics and Roomba build their robots elsewhere.)

Once in a while, I go to Boston's main Post Office - which has great hours (6 a.m. to midnights) and is open on weekends - where I can't help seeing its next door neighbor, Gillette "world shaving headquarters." And, yes, they still produce some razors here in Boston. 

Good to see that some things are still made in Massachusetts!