https://lowelllandtrust.org/greenwayclassroom/history/USCartridgeCompany.pdfThis advertisement for U.S. Cartridge Company shotgun shells dates from 1926, after the National Lead Company had taken over the cartridge manufacturer and had moved much of the production in Lowell to a plant in New Haven, Connecticut.
Corporate Takeover and Decline
While the Butler and Ames families controlled the cartridge company through most of the 1910s, the National Lead Company acquired half of all shares of U.S. Cartridge stock. After Paul Butler’s death in 1918, the Butler family sold its remaining interest in the company to National Lead. By 1922 the New-York-City-based National Lead Company, which also controlled the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, sought to transfer the operations of U.S. Cartridge to the Winchester plant in New Haven, Connecticut. Despite attempts by local politicians, members of Lowell’s business community, and the city’s Central Labor Council to maintain production in the Spindle City plant, U.S. Cartridge curtailed its manufacturing and laid off employees. Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers appealed to the various parties and conferred with the U.S. Justice Department to keep the plant open, but by late 1926 much of cartridge manufacturing machinery was moved to New Haven. One final effort to retain the production of radiators—this product line had only recently been established the Lowell cartridge plant—also failed and U.S. Cartridge closed down on January 1, 1927.17
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