Feb 1, 2022
Medfield was a center for hat making for over a century, until June 8, 1956. It reached a peak under the ownership of “Col.” Edwin V. Mitchell, who came on the scene about 1877 and retired in 1910. At one point Mitchell’s was the second-largest straw hat factory in the United States, employing upwards of 1,000 people at certain points in the season. The factory was located on North Street at the site of the Montrose School.
After the deaths of Mitchell and his son Granville in 1918, the business went into decline. While that was happening in Medfield, Julius Tofias (1890-1981), a Latvian immigrant, was building a large and successful hat factory in Boston, and he hired some laid-off Medfield employees. Needing space to expand, Tofias bought the 50,000 square-foot Medfield factory in 1928 and relocated his business.
Arnold B. Tofias (1923-2020) stated in his 2009 memoir, As Easy as ABT, that his father Julius was able, through opportunistic juggling and deal-making, to keep the plant open throughout the Depression of the 1930s. He wrote that Julius wanted to be a good employer, giving out turkeys on Thanksgiving, introducing some health insurance for employees, and opening an on-site clinic with a visiting nurse, Madeline Harding, and with Dr. A. Ritchey Stagg available on call.
FDR’s New Deal brought legal changes that made it easier for labor unions to organize workers, and the New York-based United Hatters, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union succeeded in unionizing the Tofias hat factory about 1951. Julius initially accepted the union, but without enthusiasm. Arnold was away in military service at the time, but when he rejoined the company, he quickly came to see the union as an intolerable adversary.
There were strikes in 1953 (13 weeks) and 1955, and then the union threatened to picket major retailers who sold Tofias-made hats. In May of 1956 Arnold had had enough of the disruptions. He went to New York and told the union president, Alex Rose, to ease up or he would have to close the business. Rose doubted Tofias would close such a profitable business, but three weeks later he did.
After 1956, the Tofias family went into real estate. The most prominent property they developed was Reservoir Place in Waltham, aluminum-colored with a clock tower, on Route 128 between the Mass Pike and Route 2, which had over 500,000 square feet.
After the hat factory closed, Corning Medical Instruments, a division of Corning Glass Works, occupied the buildings in Medfield. The business went through changes of ownership and morphed into Siemens Healthineers in Walpole. In the 1980s Decelle, a discount clothing retailer, occupied one of the buildings. Montrose School has occupied the site since 2007.
Annabelle’s Gift
Last month Annabelle Tofias Sheppard, Julius’ 94-year old daughter, graciously donated the commemorative bud vase, which still looks brand new, to the historical society. It shows not Tofias’ factory, but the factory in earlier times, and on the bottom is written, “Made in Germany for James Ord.” Around the turn of the 20th century Ord sold furniture, stoves, and hardware in his building, which in midcentury became A. E. Wills Hardware, then Masters Touch, and now houses Avenue restaurant.
Asked about her memories of the hat factory (she never worked in it), Annabelle said, “It was a happy place. My father Julius was a wonderful, kind, self-made man. His employees loved him. He would often give a ride to employees who lived between his house in Newton and Medfield – and he even gave rides to employees that he knew were going to picket his company during the strike! He was a loving grandfather who liked to take my kids to buy candy on Sundays.”
Asked about her brother Arnold, she said, “People did not like him. I believe the company would not have been closed if he had not been there.”
In his memoir, Arnold made references to strained relations with Annabelle, even when they were children, and with Annabelle’s late husband Jack Sheppard. Annabelle said she hadn’t seen Arnold in many, many years.