Washdays, Birthdays: Maytag Notes 80 Years
Maytag marked its 80th year of manufacturing washing machines Thursday with a birthday celebration at Dependability Square in the heart of this small, Middle American town where the company is based.
Jesse White, one of television’s most enduring commercial actors, playing the role of “Ol’ Lonely,” the Maytag repairman for the last 21 years, flew here for the party from Los Angeles, where he lives near the UCLA campus. Gov. Terry E. Branstad drove over from Des Moines, Iowa’s capital.
At center stage stood a Maytag original--a 1907-model hand-cranked washer called the Pastime. Made of cypress wood, it eased the burden of women who at the time were still boiling clothes in solutions of lye and water and scrubbing them on wash boards.
Maytag did not build America’s first washing machine. But the small Iowa company, founded in Newton, 40 miles east of Des Moines, by F. L. Maytag, revolutionized the industry with numerous innovations.
In 1922, by placing an agitator--called the Gyratator--at the bottom of an aluminum wash tub, instead of at the top, where competitors had theirs, Maytag overnight catapulted from being the 38th-largest washing machine company to No. 1. Its stock was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1925 and has been there ever since.
“The Pastime looks primitive today, but it was a highly sophisticated machine 80 years ago,” insisted Daniel J. Krumm, 60, the corporation’s chairman and chief executive.
“Four years later, an electric motor was added,” he said. “In 1949, the first Maytag automatic washers were produced. Today, Maytag sells a combination washer-dryer that operates on one computer chip. All our washing machines are fully computerized.”
Krumm said Maytag has always made money, even during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that sales for the company, which also makes clothes dryers, dish washers, garbage disposers and other kitchen appliances, are better than ever.
“As we go through the farm depression of the 1980s, an extremely difficult period for Iowans, Maytag has been a great stabilizing force,” Gov. Branstad observed Thursday.
The Maytag parent firm now consists of 14 companies in 11 states with 12,600 employes and has 21,000 stockholders. Last year’s total sales were $1.72 billion. First-quarter sales this year were $478.9 million with a net income of $41.2 million.
Aside from the original Maytag company itself, which is now the country’s No. 3 washing machine manufacturer behind Whirlpool and General Electric, the subsidiaries include Jenn-Air, Magic Chef, Norge and Gaffers & Sattler. They manufacture a wide range of household appliances and other products.
‘Machine Clicked’
Leonard Hadley, 52, president of the Maytag unit, was master of ceremonies for Thursday’s 80th birthday celebration, for which most employes wore blue and white Maytag T-shirts. He noted that the company was headquartered in bucolic Newton, embraced by rich agricultural land, “because Newton was old F. L. Maytag’s hometown.
“F. L. started his company, manufacturing farm equipment, in 1893 and produced his washing machine during a slack period,” Hadley said. “The washing machine clicked. He gave up making farm equipment. Others jumped on the bandwagon. By the 1920s, at least a dozen washing machine companies were in operation in Newton.”
Hadley grew up on a farm an hour away from Newton, which now has a population of about 15,000. Krumm, who was president of Maytag for 14 years until the company merged with Magic Chef last year, when he became corporate chief executive, also grew up in a farming community.
Repairman’s Complaint
Most of the 3,500 Maytag employees here are just one generation away from the farm, as are nearly all of the executives. Most of the company’s higher-level employees began with the company in minor positions and reached their present jobs via the promotion ladder. “Our roots are our strength,” Hadley said.
The Maytag washer costs more than its competitors’ machines, and the company claims in advertisements that they last longer and need fewer repairs. In the television ads, “Ol’ Lonely” the repairman complains of not having enough to do.
In addition to making the commercials, White serves as the company’s good-will ambassador. A veteran actor in his 70s, he has appeared in several movies and Broadway plays.
On Thursday, he placed an assortment of memorabilia into a time capsule (the outer tub from a Maytag washer, of course) that was buried in Dependability Square. Included was “Ol’ Lonely’s” blue Maytag serviceman’s cap.
