The United Shoe Machinery Company was founded upon the 1899 merger of the Goodyear Machinery Company, Consolidated and McKay Lasting Machine Company, and McKay Shoe Machinery Company. The company grew quickly from its inception. It built a new manufacturing plant in Beverly, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, in 1903. Over the years the factory was expanded. In its heyday, the company employed 9,000 people and manufactured eighty-five percent of shoe making machinery in the United States. The United Shoe Machinery Corporation absorbed the United Shoe Machinery Company in 1917, becoming the successor organization headquartered in Boston. It changed its name in 1968 to USM Corporation and merged with Emhart Industries in 1978 forming Emhart Corporation. In 1989 Emhart merged with Black & Decker Corporation.