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Weekly UpdatesBack in 1934, a group led by Cleveland businessman Roy T. Wise was called the Special Tool, Die & Machine Shop Industry Trade Association. It founded a publication--and that magazine became the one you are now reading, Tooling & Production.
That year, the United States and the world were struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression. Businesses of every stripe struggled for orders, hoping to boost production enough to put a few people back to work. It might seem an inopportune time to launch any new business enterprise. But a magazine? On manufacturing? The founders said, "Yes!"
Tooling & Production was born as Progress, the house organ of the Special Tool, Die, and Machine Shop Industry Trade Association (STDMSI), in August of that year. Circulation of the first issue was limited to a few hundred, and editor/STDMSI managing director Wise asked readers whether or not the magazine should consider including paid advertising.
By February 1935, the journal was being edited by STDMSI secretary George J. Huebner. Circulation was more than 3,500, and the editor reported that advertising revenues paid for the magazine s production costs.
Much space in those early issues was given
over to reporting institute news, as well as information about how to comply with government regulations on competition, era ployment, and the new Social Security Act. Over the next few years, the magazine, by then known as Tool & Die Journal, grew into a national publication. The magazine's 10th anniversary passed with little fanfare, as metalworking's attention was still focused on the effort to bring World War II to a close. Circulation was more than 20,000.
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Tool & Die Journal became Tooling & Production in 1951 and grew from a digest size to the present format in 1953. By 1954, circulation had increased to 32,000. The magazine featured articles on many of the technologies that have become mainstays of manufacturing: automation, carbide tooling, and new electrical controls for machine tools.
As manufacturing technology continued to evolve, T&P kept its readers on top of developments in increasingly sophisticated machines, materials, and methods.
Today, T&P is still evolving, with expanded e-newsletters, electronic magazine issues, and website. And we continue to keep our original promise, as editor Wise said in Vol. 1, No. 1: "Countless matters of timely interest to all in the industry will find in [this magazine] a medium of news and a forum for discussion."
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