Endicott Johnson Corporation

The Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company ("E-J") was a prosperous manufacturer of shoes based in New York's Southern Tier, with factories mostly located in the area's Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. An estimated 20,000 people worked in the company's factories by the 1920s, and an even greater number worked there during the boom years of the mid-1940s when, helped by footwear it produced for the military during the war years, it was producing 52 million pairs of shoes a year. During the early 1950s, the work force was still approximately 17,000 to 18,000. Today, EJ Footwear, LLC operates as a unit of Nelsonville, Ohio-based Rocky Shoes & Boots, Inc.

Founding

The Endicott Johnson Corporation grew out of the Lester Brothers Boot and Shoe Company, which began in Binghamton in 1854. In 1890, the Lester Brothers moved their business west to a nearby rural area, which in 1892 was incorporated as the Village of Lestershire and in 1916 became Johnson City. Financial problems in 1890 forced the sale of the company to a creditor and fellow shoemaker, Henry Bradford Endicott of Dedham, Massachusetts, who founded the Endicott Shoe Company and in 1899 made factory foreman George F. Johnson his partner.

George F. and the Square Deal

The E-J story is dominated by George F. Johnson (1857–1948), or George F as he was popularly called, who rose through the shoe factory ranks to become the half-owner of E-J, and its highest executive until his death in 1948.

George F's reign was dominated by his Square Deal version of welfare capitalism that, like progressive movements of the early twentieth century, advocated providing parades and churches and libraries to "uplift" workers. George F's Square Deal consisted of worker benefits even in harsh economic times that were generous and innovative for their time, but also meant to engender worker loyalty and discourage unionizing.