Chapter 4: No Springs, Honest Weight
Allen DeVilbiss attended medical school after serving in the Civil War, and upon graduation opened a medical practice in Toledo specializing in nose and throat ailments. In his practice, DeVilbiss realized the discomfort produced by applying medicine to the throat with a cotton swab, so he began experimenting with atomizers—a device that used a bottle of medicine, a tube, a squeezable ball to push air through the medicine and tube, and an adjustable spraying tip. DeVilbiss’s son, Thomas, joined the company and developed a perfume atomizer, which quickly became the company’s biggest selling product. Later the company specialized in paint sprayers.
DeVilbiss’s other son, Allen Jr., began experiments that led to the production of a pendulum scale—not the first model of its kind, but a model that proved more accurate and meticulous than previous attempts. Allen’s scale relied solely on the constant and objective force of gravity, not temperamental metal springs like most scales of the time. But Allen DeVilbiss could not make the company successful and sold it to Henry Theobald, who had previously worked at the National Cash Register Company in Dayton. In 1901, with a growing arsenal of trained salesmen, Theobald established the Toledo Scale and Cash Register Company; in 1912, the company shortened its name to Toledo Scale. Under Theobald and his successors, Toledo Scale became known worldwide for its consistent, fair measurements that ensured merchants’ profits. Clerks proudly displayed the Toledo scales and their slogan “No Springs, Honest Weight” in their shops. The company went through a series of mergers and name changes after 1960. Today, Toledo Scale exists under the name of Mettler Toledo International, Inc., with its headquarters located in Columbus.
Other metal product industries started in Toledo because of the city’s proximity to Detroit’s booming automobile industry. Acklin Stamping, a company founded by Grafton Acklin in 1911, produced car parts for Detroit companies as well as other products such as vending machine parts. In both world wars, Acklin Stamping produced war materials including shell casings, eye pieces for gas masks, and machine gun mounts. Another stamping company, the Inshield Die and Stamping Company, produced automobile parts for Toledo’s Willys-Overland and Electric Auto-Lite. In the 1920s, co-founder Roy Thal invented the Inshield driving light, a light which fit against the windshields of cars of the time to allow drivers to drive at night. During World War II, the company produced munitions-related parts, including those used in the bomb carriers of planes.
Herman Doehler literally wrote the book on die casting. He invented the process of aluminum die casting, which was used to make many automobile parts. He founded the Doehler Die Casting Company in 1907, and in 1946, merged with the Jarvis Company to create Doehler-Jarvis. In addition to engine blocks and transmission housings, the company manufactured the hood ornaments that adorned many American automobiles in the 1940s and 1950s.