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(left to right) Charles Brebner, Plant Superintendent; Richard Deupree,

P&G CEO; and O. M. Gale, National Public Relations Director

Kansas City Kansan, April 13, 1955….

“Observing 50 Years for Plant Here

Procter & Gamble Celebrates Anniversary of Firm’s First Operation in Armourdale District.

The fiftieth anniversary of one of Kansas City Kansas’ oldest industries—the Procter & Gamble company plant at Nineteenth and Kansas—is being celebrated here today.

Opening the festivities was a luncheon for the plant’s approximately 620 employees and nearly sixty retired employes [sic].

Manufacturing operations were brought to a near standstill at 11:30 o’clock this morning to make the occasion possible, C.C. Brebner, factory superintendent, said.

Highlighting the golden anniversary will be a reception and dinner at the Town House hotel tonight. The event begins at 6:30 o’clock.

Richard R. Deupree, chairman of the board for the company, will be the speaker. This, incidentally, is his fiftieth year with the Procter & Gamble organization.

He joined the firm as a clerk in the treasury department in 1905, the same year that the company opened its local branch, the second oldest of forty-nine P&G facilities located throughout the world.

Five top executives from Cincinnati headquarters will be present to pay tribute to the firm’s half-century of progress here. They are J.M. Ewell, in charge of all P&G manufacturing; O.M. Gale, national public relations director; A.M. Wood, southwestern division sales manager; S.P. McCalmont, division manufacturing superintendent of the Kansas City, Dallas, Long Beach, and Sacramento plants; and M.I. Luby, regional drug products sales manager.

R.Z. Smiley a Guest

R.Z. Smiley, a superintendent of the local plant for twenty-seven years before retiring in 1954, will be a special guest.

Thirty-three buildings have been added to the local operation since the plant was opened. It is at Nineteenth and Kansas.

The P&G firm, a manufacturer of many of the nation’s top-selling soap products, is 118 years old. Cincinnati is company headquarters.

It took P&G some sixty-eight years to grow from a partnership in Cincinnati to the point where a plant outside the Ohio city was needed. The company was formed in 1837 when James Gamble, a soapmaker from Ireland, and William Procter, a candlemaker from England, became partners. They peddled their wares thru the streets of Cincinnati in a wheelbarrow.

Output in Big Rise

Company officials estimate that in 1905, when the Kansas City Kansas factory began operation, the daily production of bar soaps totaled about one bar for each nine persons then living in the corporate limits of Kansas City Kansas and Kansas City, Mo.

Today the factory’s production in bars, cartons and bottles is more than enough to provide one “unit” of product each day for every resident of the two cities.

One afternoon early in 1905 twenty cases of soap were packed in the new Kansas City plant. It was the first day of operation. From this beginning was to grow a plant which today employs almost 700 persons in Armourdale turning out P&G soaps, synthetics, and glycerine.

An Ideal Location

Kansas City has been an ideal place for a soap factory. The industrial and meat packing home of the 1900s has continued to expand the trade territory. Transportation facilities have included many railroad terminals and the Missouri river.

The original plant in Armourdale included two large buildings, several smaller ones, and twenty-three acres of land. The payroll then numbered 302 and eighty boxes of each soap brand was considered a maximum daily production. Altho’ candles were still an important part of the company’s business (they’re not made by P&G any more) only bar soap was produced at Kansas City.

Of the four soaps originally made, only Ivory remains today. Many old time favorites, including Star washing power, O.K. yellow soap, Lenox, Chipso, White Water soap, Denver’s Best, Rub-No-More, lady Godiva, Selox, Chipso granules, and Clean Quick have been made during the fifty years, but all now are “down the drain” and memories for old time employes [sic].

Plant Has Grown

Today there are twenty-five more acres of land and thirty-three more buildings. In 1917 a silicate house and the alkali plant were built. Milled soap was in production in 1927 and the local manufacture of Camay was started.

Expansion jumped ahead in 1929. Five 3-story soap kettles and two large granules towers were built and Oxydol became a new product. In 1937 another granules tower went up, and Dreft, the first packaged synthetic detergent, was in production.

In 1940 a new “freezer” method of making Ivory bar soap was installed with equipment for the production of polished Ivory flakes.

Uses New Methods

At the end of World War II the new synthetic detergents had caught the public fancy and a new tower was raised for the production of Tide. A new method of continuous soapmaking replaced the old kettle method, reducing the time for making a “batch” of soap from days to hours.

Made at the plant today are both the tried and true sellers plus the newer and popular detergents. They are Ivory bar and flakes, Ivory Snow, Tide, Cheer, Dreft, Oxydol, Duz, Camay, Joy, Spic and Span, and Lava and Kirk’s Coco Hard Water Castile soap.

Thruout the fifty years employes [sic] have built up long service records. Today the average employe has been there fourteen years. Seven have been there 40 years or more; 12 over 35 years; 40 over 30 years; and 116 over 25 years.

Many Other Plants

Procter & Gamble has sixteen soaps, detergents and edible products factories, eighteen cottonseed and soybean oil mills, two mills producing high-grade cellulose pulp and has more than forty sales offices in the United States. It has thirteen manufacturing facilities in ten foreign countries.

Total sales for P&G in 1905 were about 14 million dollars. In the fiscal year 1953-54, sales totaled more than 911 million dollars.

During the fifty years, the company has paid dividends every year to its shareholders to extend its unbroken dividend record to sixty-five years."

KC Soap Plant Superintendent C.C. Brebner's introductory speech at the 50-year celebration reception and dinner, April 13, 1955, at the Town House Hotel....

Mr. Deupree, guests, and fellow employees of the Kansas City factory:

Welcome to our "50th Anniversary" celebration. I want to extend a special word of greeting to the retired employees who are with us this morning and to the men in military service. I regret that more of our servicemen are unable to be with us, but we hope they will all be back in the near future.

Fifty years ago, in 1905, the Kansas City factory started production of the first Procter & Gamble products to be manufactured outside of Cincinnati. There were many reasons for selecting Kansas City as the site for the new factory. In the days following the turn of the century, the midwest was growing rapidly in population and this, combined with the presence of a large meat packing industry and excellent transportation facilities, were factors which led to the selection of Kansas City for the company's second plant.

Procter & Gamble purchased 23 acres in 1903 and started construction the same year. In early 1905, production started and the Kansas City factory was in business. In those days, there were 102 people on the payroll and 80 boxes per day of each brand were considered excellent production. The street car line did not extend this far out on Kansas Avenue and in bad weather it was quite a job reaching the factory. This part of town was sparsely populated and a critical housing shortage existed. Many of the construction workers and some of the first production employees lived in tents along the bluff north of the factory.

The factory itself has changed in many ways since those early days and so have the products which we make. In 1905, we manufactured Ivory, Lenox, Denver's Best, and White Water soap. Research and experience have shown us how to make better products and, of the original brands, only Ivory is still made here today. Ivory, of course, was 75 years old last year and enjoyed its large volume year to date.

The year 1905 has added significance for our special guest today, as that is the year he was employed by Procter & Gamble. It seems fitting that a man who is celebrating his golden anniversary with the company should help us celebrate the golden anniversary of our factory. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome to our factory the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. R.R. Deupree.

Agenda for P&G CEO Richard Deupree's KC 50-year celebration visit...

THE AGENDA

I April 12

Messrs. RR Deupree, JM Ewell, SP McCalmont, OM Gale, and SA Shaddix arrive in Kansas City.

II April 12 - 3:15 pm

Mr. Brebner [Plant Superintendent] in a 6-minute interview over radio station KCKN. Community

Calendar program.

III April 12 - 10:35 pm

Mr. McCalmont in a 6-minute interview over WDAF-TV. Tonight in Kansas City program.

IV April 13 - 7:45 am

Breakfast Club of the Kansas City, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce at the Town House Hotel.

Attended by Mr. Ewell, Mr. McCalmont, Mr. Gale, Mr. Retrum, Mr. Smiley, and Mr. Brebner.

V April 13 - 10:00 am

Mr. Deupree holds a conference with members of the Kansas City Press in his suite at the Town

House Hotel.

VI April 13 - 11:15 am

Mr. Deupree and party arrive at the Kansas City Factory for factory celebration.

VII April 13 - 3:00 pm

Mr. Gale in a 12-minute interview over radio station KCMO. Interview to be recorded for later

use on the Kansas Hour.

VIII April 13 - 3:15 pm

Mr. Ewell in a 6-minute interview over KCMO-TV on Around the Town.

IX April 13 - 4:00 pm

Messrs: Gale, Retrum, and Roberts on KMBC-TV.

X April 13 - 6:30 pm

Reception and dinner for business and civic leaders of the Kansas City metropolitan area at the

Town House Hotel, Main and Junior Ballrooms.

Article from the Kansas City Star, Wednesday, April 13, 1955...

KEY SOAP CHANGE

Detergents Started Revolution in the Industry in 1944, Procter-Gamble Head Says.

HERE FOR PLANT FETE

Richard R. Deupree Taking Part in Fiftieth Anniversary Event for Local Facility.

A revolution in the soap industry, the first in a thousand years, started in 1944 with the introduction of detergents. Richard R. Deupree, chairman of the board at Procter & Gamble Manufacturing company, said in Kansas City, Kansas, today.

The head of the giant soap company, which has fifty manufacturing plants throughout the world, came in Kansas City to participate in observance programs for the fiftieth anniversary of establishment of his company's big plant in Kansas City, Kansas.

Speaks at Plant.

He spoke at a chamber of commerce breakfast meeting and a noon luncheon in the plant for present and retired employees. He will address a 6:30 o'clock dinner meeting tonight at the Town House for 300 business and civic leaders of Greater Kansas City.

Deupree went to work for Procter & Gamble as a clerk in 1905, the year the Kansas City, Kansas, plant was opened. That plant was the first one established outside the parent plant in Cincinnati, and now is the third largest of the fifty the company operates.

In 1910 Deupree worked out of the Kansas City offices selling soap chips to hotels and laundries. Since then he climbed up the executive ladder to the top position in his company. He was named vice-president and general manager in 1928, president in 1930, and chairman of the board in 1948.

The advent of detergents in 1944 revolutionized the soap industry, Deupree said. He said that before then soap was made, except for the method of production, "like it was in Caesar's time."

"Half of the products Procter & Gamble makes today were not in existence ten years ago," Deupree said. "Ivory soap is the only brand our company produced seventy-five years ago."

Compares Prices, Wages.

A particular point the speaker emphasized was that Ivory soap sold to the consumer seventy-five years ago for 5 cents a cake and that now the price is 7 1/2 cents. He pointed out that seventy-five years ago the prevailing wage was 10 cents an hour and that now the average wage, including fringe benefits, is $3 an hour, and that corporate taxes now are twenty times higher.

"If the price of soap had advanced the same as wages and taxes, a cake of Ivory today would sell for $2.50," Deupree said.

"Contrary to what some people believe, the average worker in our plants produces three times as much as he or she did seventy-five years ago."

Deupree said that during the fifty years he has been with Procter & Gamble, production had doubled every ten years and that there is no reason to believe that same rate of progress would not continue. He said that advertising was one of the biggest keys to his company's success.

Discusses a Trend.

The wide variety of detergents developed since 1954 have not replaced soap for body use, according to the speaker. For all other uses, soap now has only about 20 per cent of the market. A trend developing now, Deupree explained, is in the direction of a low-sudsing detergent. New washing machines that operate better with that kind of material are responsible for that trend.

Deupree said he would not remember a labor strike in any of his company's plants in the last fifty years. His opinion is that a profit-sharing plan activated in 1887 was responsible. Under that plan, he explained, old employees could retire with ample security and "go fishing twice a day."

Since 1923 the company has had a guaranteed work plan for all plant employees who had been on the pay roll more than two years. Deupree said it was not until 1923 that his company realized that consumption of its products did not fluctuate much over a year's time and that the only unevenness was in the buying.

"A Voluntary Plan."

"Right then we decided to let a buyer purchase all he wanted but would deliver only as the supply was being used," Deupree said. "That enabled us to establish a guaranteed work plan. That guarantee is voluntary on the company's part. It is not a contractual obligation. We realize that such a plan, under a contract, could break a business."

Deupree explained that his company guarantees its employees forty-eight weeks of work a year. He did not know whether the plan would work for other industries, explaining that Procter & Gamble "was not trying to reform the world."

A total of about 28,000 employees are on the company pay roll in all of its plants.

An article from The Kansas City Kansan, Tuesday, April 12, 1955...

The P&G Fiftieth Anniversary

The Kansas City area this week salutes one of its oldest and most prominent industrial concerns, the Procter & Gamble company, which tomorrow celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of its local plant. Here is a typical American concern, which began humbly, grew steadily in the face of free competition, utilizing new inventions and chemical advances and keeping abreast of the public demand for better and better goods and services.

Production began at the West Kansas avenue plant in 1905 in two buildings. This was the first expansion of P&G outside of its home city of Cincinnati and today is the oldest of the half-hundred P&G facilities located thruout [sic] the world.

The firm was founded in 1837 in Cincinnati by James Gamble, an Irish soapmaker, and William Procter, a candlemaker from England. The partners peddled their wares thru the city in a wheelbarrow.

Since the original P&G plant here was built on a site of twenty-three acres, about twenty-five acres and thirty-three additional buildings have been added, employment has risen from about 100 in the early days to more than 600 now. Where in the early days only four brands of bar soap were made, today some twenty production departments turnout nationally famous consumer brands.

When the factory began operation in 1905, the daily production of bar soaps totaled about one bar for every nine persons then living in the corporate limits of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. Today the factory's production in bars, cartons or bottles is more than enough to provide one "unit" of product each day for every resident of the two cities.

The firm long has enjoyed an enviable reputation for excellent management-employe [sic] relationships. of the 640 employees at the local plant, the average has been with the company almost fourteen years. More than one-fourth have been with the company more than twenty-five years. More than a third have relatives working at the plant. This pattern of long service prevails at other P&G plants. There has not been a major strike in more than sixty years.

The company's profit sharing plan, begun in 1887, is the oldest in continuous existence in the U.S. The company also was a pioneer in offering pension and disability benefits, group life insurance, a stock purchase plan, and guaranteed employment for forty-eight weeks a year.

In many ways, Procter & Gamble is a remarkable firm. Its local plant is one of the foundations of the Kansas City, Kansas, industrial empire.

Article from Kansas City Kansan, Wednesday, April 13, 1955...

P&G Anniversary Day Proclaimed

Today, April 13, has been proclaimed "P&G Golden Anniversary Day" in Kansas City, Kansas, by Mayor Clark E. Tucker and Mayor-elect Paul F. Mitchum, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Procter & Gamble Soap company's branch plant here.

"Procter & Gamble, one of our more important pioneer industries, established its first branch plant in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1905. During the past fifty years, thousands of workers have engaged in the production and distribution of soap products from this plant, which today is the second largest in the company's forty-nine plants and helps Kansas City, Kansas, rank as third in the United States in total value of soap products manufactured," the proclamation reads.

An outline of the costs of the KC Soap Plant onsite event for the 50-year celebration...

Kansas City Factory March 25, 1955

PROVISIONS COMMITTEE

Responsibilities:

1. Obtain all materials required, other than

food.

2. Set up additional tables needed in Cafeteria

area.

Plans:

1. The following items have been rented.

Delivery will be made by 9:30 a.m. on

Wednesday, April 13, and the items will be

picked up at 2:30 p.m. on the same day.

(a) Tables – 8’ long 45 x $1.25 = $56.25

(b) Chairs 450 x .12 = 54.00

(d) Cafeteria trays 450 x .10 = 45.00

(e) Salt-pepper-sugar 45 x .09 = 4.05

(f) Ash trays 90 x .03 = 2.70

(g) 1 silver cake knife 1 x .50 = .50

$203.00

These are brand new tables, so no table

clothes are needed.

2. The following items are to be ordered:

(a) Paper plates (768/case) = $ 9.10

(b) Paper cups (700) = 11.55

(large dinner napkins,

white or yellow, with

this printing:

“Procter & Gamble

Kansas City Factory

Golden Anniversary”

a) (a) 8 – 10 additional tables will be set up in

Cafeteria. These can be set up ahead of time.

(b) 35 tables will be set up in Recreation Room.

A window in west end of room will be removed

and tables and chairs passed through window

into room to avoid confusion at door. A

volunteer squad of 13 men will be recruited to

set up these tables after the talks and before

the Cafeteria overflow returns to the room, an

estimated 20 minutes

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