United Shoe Machinery Corporation

By 1910, it had an eighty percent share of the shoe machinery market with assets reaching forty million dollars, and it had acquired control of branch companies in foreign countries.

In 1989, in order to resist a two billion dollar takeover attempt by a New York investment group (which included oil heir Gordon P. Getty), Emhart merged with Black & Decker Corporation.

The Bewerly(sic) site had food halls seating 700 employees, break rooms, leasure facilities, apprenticeship and a hospital.

[9] A "trial of prodigious length" followed, with the verdict going against USM, but the corporation wasn't broken up and the judgement and remedy was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1954.

It continued to innovate within the shoe manufacturing industry, but it also developed such modern inventions as the hot glue gun, the soda can pop-top, the drive mechanism for the Lunar Roving, and pop rivets for the Concorde.

[9] However, the attempts at diversification failed to generate enough money and in 1976 the company, heavily in debt, was bought by Emhart Corporation, now Stanley Engineered Fastening,[10] an organisation half its size.

[18] During the postwar years, the corporate engineers experimented intensively with armoured fighting vehicles of modular design, kindred by common chassis, common armor elements, interchangeable armament, automatic loading for weapons, and low weight in order to attain high speeds, coupled with various comfort add-ons provided for the housed crew.