ABSTRACT
From its 1911 start-up on farmland along the banks of the Connecticut River,
American Bosch contributed to the valley’s industrial vibrancy. But we will
see that in the late 1940s financial forces from outside the river valley began
purchasing the valley’s leading firms, the Bosch included. In the 1950s the
Bosch’s new owners, a Wall Street financial holding company, commenced an
aggressive international search for nonunion skilled and semiskilled labor, which
resulted in the piecemeal relocation of Bosch work for some 35 years before its
ultimate closure in 1986. The Bosch’s demise by “hundreds of small cuts” is
symbolic of old-line manufacturing’s decline in the industrial northeastern United
States. This chapter tells the story of the company’s early history, including its
unionization in the 1930s. Subsequent chapters document its closure and the
collapse of the metalworking sector in the Connecticut River Valley.
