Publications
name: label: Collection Creator
content: United Shoe Machinery Corporation
setName: label: See more items in
content: United Shoe Machinery Corporation Records
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1898 - 1987
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0277, Series 14
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series contains issues of the company's employee magazines and a number of the self promotional publications it sponsored. There are also bound catalogs for the H.E. Smith & Company, proprietors of Nox Em' All Shoes, 1898-1930.

Subseries 1, catalog, depict and describe all the shoe making equipment, tools, and supplies manufactured by United Shoe, and provide information on specifications and prices.  Many of the catalogs are annotated with hand-written revisions and several contain extensive notes about various machines.  The USMC Marking Machine, circa 1940Type Style andSpecification Book, circa 1940, and shows examples of all the types of markings that USMC placed on its products.  The 1969 bookMachine Names & Symbols lists the company's authorized machine names and their symbols. The  materials are arranged chronologically. 

This series also contains a complete run of The Three Partners from July 1914 to December 1920.  This employee magazine was published by the United Shoe Machinery Corporation Athletic Association and is typical of company magazines published at large corporations.  It contains information on events within the factory and in branch offices; tips on machinery use and safety; photographs of employees, their families, and their activities; biographic profiles of managers and executives; and articles on American business and  labor relations. In addition, the issues published during the war years feature United Shoe employees serving in the military; war-related activities in the factory and on the home front; and a feature page of war photographs.

A later employee magazine, USM Today, is also included in this series.  It began publication in 1969, under the direction of the company's Public Relations Department.  Heavily illustrated, it focuses on new developments among the many international branches and subsidiaries of the USM Corporation.  Issues from 1969-1974 are included in the series.  Another employee publication, Beverly Today, is a heavily illustrated newspaper published exclusively for employees at the Beverly factory site.  The focus of this bi-monthly publication is on the employees and their activities, both on and off the job.  Issues from 1979-1985 are included.  The Quarter Century Club News is a news magazine published by the Quarter Century Club, which had been founded in 1926 for employees who had completed 25 years of employment with  United Shoe.  Its focus is on the personal activities of employees, both active and retired.  The magazine covers all branches of the company's operations and it, too, is heavily illustrated with photographs.  Included in this series are issues from 1977-1987.

Two publications of particular interest in this series are An Industrial City andThe Story of Three Partners, both published in 1911.  These two publications are intended to portray the company's warm benevolence towards and concern for its employees.