Developing and Utilizing Technological Leadership: Industrial Research, Vertical Integration, and Business Strategy at the Draper Company
William Mass · 1989
The Draper firm was sui generis and followed none of the set patterns in the textile machinery industry's development. During its formative years it possessed what was unquestionably the most developmental in the industry, an quite unmatched in any other textile-machinery firm in any other period in American history [16, p. 117]. Beginning in the 1870s and continuing for over three-quarters of a century, the Draper Company was the dominant force and worldwide leader in shaping mechanical innovations in the cotton textile industry. The Draper Company was the central and directing agency in the development and continued improvement of high-speed ring spinning (the most important spinning innovations of the late 19th century textile industry) in the 1870s and 1880s. The Draper automatic loom, introduced in 1895, was a breakthrough in weaving technology; its fundamental design remained the industry standard and was not rivaled in significance by any 20th century textile innovation, until the post-World War II development of shuttleless looms. The exceptional technical and industrial leadership of the Draper Company and its top owner-managers has been recognized by industry historians [16; 7, pp. 212, 214]. Yet its path-breaking dynamic developmental organization has remained largely unexplored and unexplained. What follows is a brief account that in part fills this gap, along with some broader speculations.