Crown College Days

Joseph H. Axelrod, 31, was one of the first New Englanders to have a telephone in his automobile. He needed it. As boss of six textile mills in four cities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, plump, hustling Joe Axelrod made the rounds every day, and he liked to keep in touch. Last week, Joe Axelrod added a fifth city (Providence) to his tour, a seventh plant (the Damar Wool Combing Co.) to his holdings. Even for a young man who likes to keep moving, Axelrod had moved far. In 9 1/2 years he had parlayed $5,500 into an integrated textile empire worth $16 million.

Joe started to work in 1938, when he was just out of the University of Pennsylvania. To his $500 savings, his father, James, a textile jobber, added $5,000. With the money, they formed Airedale Worsted Mills, Inc. with Joe as president. They rented a loft in a Woonsocket (R.I.) mill, bought some secondhand machinery, hired two workers and started weaving worsted fabrics.

The Team. Joe made the goods; his father sold them. Selling was no trick when war came; the trick was production. Joe turned it by picking up the newest textile machines, applying the newest techniques, and plowing all profits back into more plants. Joe's aim was integration--enough plants to handle wool virtually from the sheep's back to finished cloth. In 1942 Airedale Worsted Mills, Inc. was healthy enough to take over Woonsocket's Bernon.

In the next three years the Axelrods wove the Jeffrey Finishing Co., Woonsocket's Lippitt Worsted Mills and Dorlexa Dyeing & Finishing Co. and Pawtucket's Crown Manufacturing Co. into their empire. Last spring they got control of New Bedford's old, famed Wamsutta Mills (sheetings, broadcloths, specialty fabrics). Joe and his dad, who is treasurer, now have 3,150 men & women (including Wamsutta) working for them, and with last week's buy, they reached Joe's goal of integration.

The College. A 15-hour-a-day worker, Joe gets up at 5130 in his home at Newton, Mass., spends his off hours on his 46-ft. cruiser daydreaming up new textile tricks, like "Crown College." To pep up morale in his main Crown plant in Pawtucket, R.I., Joe built glass-enclosed smoking rooms, decorated the plant in cheerful colors, landscaped its lawns, built a playground and baseball diamond. Among New England's grimy, ancient plants it so stood out that workers began calling it Crown College.

Joe went along with the gag. He was "Prexy," the general manager's office was labeled "Dean," overseers became "professors," lavatories were marked "Boys" and "Girls,"the workers became "students." Then Joe started a real school, with eleven courses in textile technique (one class a week) for Crown workers. Joe's idea was to train workers for the new cost-cutting machines and processes he was constantly installing in his plants. It paid off double; the school became so popular that during the worst of the manpower shortage Joe had more applicants than he could hire.

Like many another textile man who has looked like a genius during the boom, Joe Axelrod's real test will come with the return of cutthroat competition when the boom ends. He thinks his company is solid enough to withstand the shock. Last year, on gross sales of $37 million, net profits were some $5.5 million.

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