In the old days, cities took their reputations as manufacturing centers very seriously, and so did the companies. When inter-company (and intra-family) rivalry broke out in the burgeoning bell industry, one company took pains to point out that only their bells were actually made in Troy; that other pack of scoundrels (who dominated the industry) were in West Troy, across the river in what is now Watervliet. And to some extent it still matters today; I won’t ever buy a Troy-Bilt product again, simply because they’re no longer built in Troy, or anywhere near. They decamped for Michigan years ago.
So I can’t help but feel that the Albany Paper Collar Company, a few miles south of the Collar City, must have always been thought of as putting out a second class product. Not because their collars were paper; don’t forget that celluloid (an Albany invention) hadn’t yet been applied to the collar business. Paper collars were considered a breakthrough. If they were made in Troy. Oh, sure, those Albany collars’ll cover your neck, but they’d never make it in the big town. Nevertheless, they had a very large factory on Broadway, right where the DEC building is today. One guide to Albany claimed it was the sixth largest company in an industry of 70, employing from 40 to 50 persons, “mostly girls,” and that this business also supported the box factory of George Cozine at 283-285 Broadway, “which is fitted up with all the latest improved machinery, and devoted expressly to making the little box into which the collars are put, each box containing ten collars systematically rolled in the least possible room.” The covers of the boxes were ornamented with a fine representation of our new State Capitol.