70 Years of Cleaning Industry Memories Pt. 3

An early truck of Swish Chemical Products. The Canadian-based distributor later changed its name to Swish Maintenance Limited.

D.N. Calkins, founder of Rochester Germicide, in his office, circa 1900.

Today, the company is known as Rochester Midland Corp.

In 1978, Daycon Products, led by President Robert “Bobby” Cohen (right), launched the Custodial Institute to train front-line janitors. The company remains true to this vision: in 2005, it established the Building Wellness Institute to teach sustainable cleaning methods.

Fred Glass, the second-generation owner of M.D. Stetson, when he was a sales manager in the 1970s. Glass flew his own Piper Cherokee Arrow for sales calls. Today, the company is run by his kids, Mike and Andrea.

SM Freetime Columnist Gretchen Roufs received this letter from President Bill Clinton after pointing out that the White House’s outdoor mats looked a “little worn out” during a tour.

Leo Kelly (left) succeeded Harry Apple as secretary of NSSA. He served as executive vice president for 16 years. Here he is receiving a plaque for his service upon his retirement in 1961. Sadly, he passed away one month later.

The Clarke building in Michigan, circa the 1950s, showcases the company’s floor machines and vacuums.

H.F. Johnson Jr. (center), of S.C. Johnson, and crew astride the Sikorsky S-38 amphibious bi-plane they flew on the 1935 Carnauba Expedition, a trip that took them up the Amazon in search of sustainable stands of the Carnauba palms that were a key raw material in the company’s wax products.

A Deb poster promoting its car shampoo from 1947.

Some of the earliest employees of S.C. Johnson. Today, commercial products are sold under the Diversey name.

Old Athea Laboratories’ literature helped distributors with their private label lines.

In the 1960s, the animals at Stuttgart’s Wilhelma Zoogrew accustomed to their cages being cleaned mechanically with Karcher’s DS 59, supplied as a single-axle trailer.

Palmer Fixture was founded in 1907 and was one of Sanitary Maintenance’s earliest advertisers. They were in this building in the 1960s and ’70s.