Online Exhibitions:

Documenting Change: Industry and Business in Troy and Rensselaer County, NY

American Seal Manufacturing Company

Records, ca. 1914-1978.

Extent: Less than 1 cu. ft.

Historical Note: American Seal was the primary brand of ready-mixed paints and varnishes produced by the William Connors Paint Manufacturing Company. Connors established a business on Hill Street in Troy in 1878 and moved to River Street in 1889. The company changed ownership several times over more than a century and has operated under several different names. The Connors Company built a building at 669 River Street in Troy in 1898. In 1971 the company was acquired by Monsey Products, and it moved from its long-time home on River Street to facilities in Waterford in 1979.

Scope and Content: Records maintained by Monsey Products in Waterford, as successor to American Seal relate almost entirely to the years since the company moved from Troy in 1978 . There are, however, some blueprints of the company's River Street building, ca. 1914, an insurance appraisal of the firm's property from 1949, and a few pieces of promotional material.

Location: Monsey Products Company, 430 Hudson River Rd., Waterford, NY 12188. For access, contact the company.

Materials Outside the Capital District:

The Special Collections Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara Library has some trade catalogs of the William Connors Paint Manufacturing Company in its trade catalog collection.

The Archives Center of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., has a few folders of promotional materials of William Connors Company and American Seal Manufacturing, ca. 1910-1930 in the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.

Ad from The City of Troy & Its Resources Illustrated, Troy Observer, c. 1910.

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