Description: This is an aerial view of Procter & Gamble's Ivorydale facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Procter & Gamble Company Plant, located on Spring Grove Avenue between Mill Creek and Township Avenue in the Cincinnati suburb of St. Bernard, originally covered eleven acres in a section called Ivorydale. It was, and still is, one of the largest soap manufacturing plants in the world. William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, a soapmaker, formed the company known as Procter & Gamble in 1837. The two men, immigrants from England and Ireland respectively, had settled earlier in Cincinnati and had married sisters. They decided to pool their resources to form their own company, formalizing the relationship on October 31, 1837. The original plant dates to ca. 1885 when Procter & Gamble expanded operations from their downtown location. The giant complex would eventually cover 243 acres with 120 buildings, including the 43-acre food plant built in 1911. During the 1930s, the buildings was described as being a maze of utilitarian gray stone buildings, interspersed with outdoor retorts and tanks, smokestacks and railroad tracks. The campus included its own fire station, dining rooms and recreational facilities. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B07F08_006_1
Subjects: Cincinnati (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Pictorial works; Cincinnati (Ohio)--Aerial views; Proctor and Gamble Company; Manufacturing industries; Works Progress Administration; Ohio Federal Writers' Project
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)