Open an American tackle catalogue from 1850, 1900 or 1950 and count the hooks that were actually made in the United States. In 1850 the answer is none. In 1900 it is a handful, most of them from one company in Ohio. In 1950 it is still a minority, with Norway and Redditch supplying the rest. For a country with more anglers than any other, America was a surprisingly reluctant hook maker, and the story of the firms that did try, New Haven, Akron and Denver among them, is a story of working against a flood of cheap, excellent imports. This article follows that story and points to the Pflueger entries in the reference that illustrate it.
Everything imported
John J. Brown’s American Angler’s Guide of 1849 is the first substantial American fishing book, and its hook plate is an English plate. The patterns it recommends are Limericks, Kirbys and Carlisles, and Brown, who kept a tackle shop in New York, sold Redditch hooks because there was nothing else to sell. American wire-drawing and needle-making were still small, and a hook-maker’s skills were concentrated in two English towns and a few Irish workshops. Through the whole of the nineteenth century the big New York and Boston tackle houses, Abbey & Imbrie, Conroy, Bradford & Anthony, imported Redditch hooks in bulk and sold them under their own labels, which is why so many American-branded packets from the period contain Allcock or Bartleet hooks.
New Haven, 1864
The first serious attempt at domestic manufacture came in Connecticut, the centre of American needle, pin and small-metal production. The American Fish Hook and Needle Company of New Haven was established in 1864, and its early boxes, one of which is documented in an earlier post on this site, make a great deal of the fact that the hooks are American. The company was founded on a machine process rather than the Redditch bench, and its hooks are recognisably different: uniform, slightly heavier in the wire, with a distinctive flat spade.
New Haven did not last as an independent maker. The Civil War-era tariff that protected it lapsed, English hooks were good and cheap, and by the 1880s the company was looking for a buyer. It found one in Ohio.
Akron: Enterprise Manufacturing and the Pflueger name
Luminous bait
Ernest F. Pflueger, a German immigrant, set up the Enterprise Manufacturing Company in Akron around 1880 to make small metal goods. His first fishing success was not a hook but a coating: in 1883 he patented a phosphorescent paint and applied it to lures and hooks, and “luminous bait” sold well enough to turn Enterprise into a tackle company. Around 1886 the firm absorbed the American Fish Hook Company of New Haven, machinery and all, and Akron became the one place in America where hooks were made in volume. By the turn of the century the plant was turning out millions a year.
Four Brothers and the Bulldog
After the founder’s death his sons ran the business, and the “Four Brothers” brand on packets of the early twentieth century refers to them. The Bulldog trade mark, which appears on hook boxes from the 1910s to the 1960s, is the mark most collectors know. Pflueger hooks were sold under a numbering system that looks like Mustad’s, four- or five-digit model numbers with a letter suffix for finish (J for japanned, Br for bronzed, T for tinned, G for gilt, B for blued), and the range covered the whole American market: Kirbys and Limericks for bait, Sproats for flies, Carlisles for minnows, O’Shaughnessys for salt water, and specialities like the Sheepshead and the Sobey that no English maker would have bothered with.
The best of them were very good. The 5515 O’Shaughnessy Dublin Needle-Eyed, with its distinctive needle eye, is one of the most sought-after American hooks in the reference. But Pflueger’s heart moved elsewhere. The Supreme baitcasting reel of 1916 made the firm’s reputation, reels and lures took over the catalogue, and hooks became a supporting line. The family sold Enterprise to Shakespeare in 1966, and under Shakespeare the Akron hook production was wound down. A Pflueger hook made after that date is a branded import.
Denver: Wright & McGill
The other American name that matters is Wright & McGill of Denver, founded in 1925 by Drew McGill and Stan Wright. McGill’s idea was a hook with the point curved inward like an eagle’s talon, and the Eagle Claw, registered as a trade mark in 1938, became the first American hook to compete on design rather than on price or patriotism. Eagle Claw hooks were and are machine-made in Colorado, and for the second half of the twentieth century they were the default bait hook in every American hardware store. They are not yet well represented in the reference; the earlier packets, from the 1930s and 1940s, are the ones to look for.
Why the imports won
Three things worked against American hook makers. The first was Mustad, whose automatic machines from 1877 made hooks so cheaply that even with tariffs a Norwegian hook landed in New York for less than an Akron one. The second was the fly-fishing trade’s loyalty to Redditch: American fly tiers of the interwar years bought Allcock, Sealey and later Partridge hooks by preference, and the American fly-hook boom of the 1950s and 1960s was built almost entirely on Mustad’s 94840 and 3906. The third was that American firms were better at lures and reels, where design and marketing mattered, than at a commodity like hooks. Pflueger’s history is the pattern: start with hooks, prosper on lures, end up as a reel brand.
What the collector should look for
Because so much of the American market was imported, the interesting American packets are the ones that prove domestic manufacture: New Haven boxes with the “American” claim, early Enterprise and Four Brothers wraps, Bulldog boxes with “Made in U.S.A.” on the lid, and pre-war Eagle Claw cards. American dealer packets, Abbey & Imbrie and the rest, are worth having for the printing, but the hooks inside should be compared with documented Redditch patterns before anyone claims an American origin for them. The compare tool will usually settle it: a Pflueger Sproat and an Allcock Sproat of the same size do not have the same bend.
Source and further reading
John J. Brown, The American Angler’s Guide (1849). The Pflueger manufacturer page on this site, with its timeline from 1880 to the Shakespeare sale. Todd Larson, “Fishing for History” blog, on Pflueger chronology. Eagle Claw’s own centenary history for the Wright & McGill dates.
Image note: The illustrations are public domain reproductions from Wikimedia Commons and are credited in their captions. Packet and box photographs from the collection accompany the individual Pflueger entries.
