In early 1922 the Union Machine Co., of Grand Rapids, Michigan, seems to have come from nowhere to introduce a line of "portable" (by the standards of the day) woodworking machines intended for school shops. Within a year the company was merged with Valley City Machine Works and the Grand Rapids Grinding Machine Co. to create Gallmeyer & Livingston Co. See that Gallmeyer & Livingston entry for the subsequent history.

Information Sources

• 1922-04-06 The Iron Age page 921, article on "Portable Saw Bench for Pattern-Shop Use" from Union Machine Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.
• December 1922 Industrial-Arts Magazine, page xxx.

  A most interesting group of portable machines for the school woodshop has been developed by the Union Machine Company, Grand Rapids, Mich., and is being offered to vocational and manual training school shops.

  The line includes a combination jointer and universal saw bench, mounted on a sturdy metal base and fitted with heavy casters, so that it can be moved to any part of the shop where it will be of most direct and immediate service. The machine is equipped with every necessary device for handling the widest variety of work, is thoroughly rigid and adjustable for the widest kinds of uses, is fully equipped with safety devices, and has been tried out in commercial shops where it has been subjected to the heaviest duty. It is fitted with a cycle motor and switch and can be attached to any light socket.

  The Union Machine Company also manufactures a portable jointer, a bench jointer, a universal saw bench and a portable band saw. In the manufacture of the bench special attention has been given to safety. Complete descriptive circulars are available and will be sent upon request to school authorities.

• A 1932 Machinery article on Charles Henry Gallmeyer has the following:

  In 1912, he became a partner in the Valley City Machine Works, serving as its president until 1923, when the company was merged with the Grand Rapids Grinding Machine Co. and the Union Machine Co., becoming the Gallmeyer & Livingston ...

• Michigan Through the Centuries by Willis Frederick Dunbar, 1955, has this snippet:

  In 1923, this company, the Grand Rapids Machine Company and the Union Machine Company merged to form the firm of Gallmeyer and Livingston Company, a foundry and machine manufacturing firm. Charles H. Gallmeyer was the first treasurer of ...

• Searches have failed to turn up any announcement of this company's formation. Searches are challenging due to the sheer number of identically-named companies, and it is all to easy to get confused. We have a report of a school-shop woodworking machine marked "Union" and Kalamazoo but we have been unable to determine the origin of such a machine.