Johnson City: George F. Johnson's Square Deal
New York
Johnson City was renamed in honor of George F. Johnson, the paternalistic shoe magnate who ran the Endicott Johnson Corporation from the eighteen nineties until his death in nineteen forty-eight. The town was formerly called Lestershire, and the renaming was itself a measure of how thoroughly Johnson shaped it.
Johnson called his management philosophy the Square Deal, and he meant it literally: workers received profit sharing, company-built homes workers could buy, company-funded health care, and libraries, parks, carousels, and swimming pools, many of them free to the public. He paid workers to march in parades and helped build their churches. In exchange, he asked only that they not unionize. Most never did.
At its peak, Endicott Johnson supplied footwear for the American military in both world wars. The distinctive Square Deal arches still stand in Johnson City and neighboring Endicott.
