history

B.F. Sturtevant Company was founded by Benjamin Franklin Sturtevant in 1860. Originally, the company manufactured wooden pegs used in shoemaking, but this process created an excess of sawdust. Sturtevant invented a mechanical fan to keep the work area sawdust free. Around 1864, they manufactured their first commercially successful blower. By 1866, they were working exclusively on making fans and employed 50 workers. Benjamin Franklin Sturtevant died in 1890 and Eugene Foss, his son-in-law, took over the company, but around 1909, Foss left the company to run for Governor of Massachusetts. He served three one-year terms. Around 1917, his personal financial problems threatened the company and it was put into receivership along with the rest of his assets.