GENERAL DRY BATTERIES

GENERAL DRY BATTERIES. From 1936 through 1958 dry-cell batteries were manufactured in Dubuque at General Dry Batteries. The company produced dry cells with fifty-eight private labels including Sears, Zenith, and Firestone. The plant daily consumed an estimated 120,000 pounds of raw material and produced one million pounds of batteries weekly. Thousands of people were eventually employed at the company as turnover annually was nearly 100 percent.

The company came to Dubuque in 1936 from its home in Cleveland. Owned by the Diebel family, General Dry Batteries opened at 3200 Jackson Street, now the site of FLEXSTEEL INDUSTRIES, INC. In 1937 workers received 36 cents per hour. Wages rose to 37.5 cents hourly in 1942.

General Dry Batteries reached its peak employment with 1,100 women and 500 men during WORLD WAR II. Women began work by sweeping. This continued until one by one they were chosen for other work. Men, for example, were often given work with machines while women were assigned to assembly jobs. With the start of war, the company went on three shifts--twenty-four hours a day--with employees being encouraged to work seven days. INTERSTATE POWER COMPANY operated special bus lines for the employees and those who lived beyond the bus lines received extra ration stamps for gasoline. Women who did the same work as men found themselves earning less for the same work. When the war ended, however, many of the women remained in the workforce proving themselves to employers who relied on their abilities.

Steady demand for batteries led the federal government to force Mallory Co. to license General Dry Batteries with its mercury-cell process. With the end of the war, Mallory purchased the Dubuque company to regain its monopoly. Because Iowa would not allow Mallory to vent deadly mercury vapor into the air and because the company wanted to consolidate its production process, the Dubuque factory was closed in 1958. The company moved back to Cleveland.