For Labor Day, 140 Years of Related Artisans

Synonymous with pocketknives, the Case family has founded no less than 32 cutlery companies since the Civil War, culminating in over 50 relations in the industry, continuing to today: America’s oldest, longest-running, and largest family of knife makers.

Award-winning author Brad Lockwood is also a Case descendant, the great-great grandson of Sara Wyatt and Andrew Jackson Case, and was piqued by his grandmother’s stories, as well as her curious avoidance, to research and write the definitive history of his family.

“She had seen it firsthand, but my grandmother wouldn’t tell us the whole story, just the happier first half.” offers Lockwood. “Truly serendipity, only after losing her to cancer could I find the truth – why my ancestors started and worked for so many different cutlery companies.”

In addition to documenting perhaps the most peculiar dynasty in all of American business – dozens of relations forming literally dozens of competing companies – The Case Cutlery Dynasty: Tested XX is the history of labor. Immigrant masters, settlers and manufacturers, entire towns learning and sharing the craft of making a knife: forging, grinding, assembling, hafting, finishing, and selling…

Through westward expansion, multiple world wars, expeditions to the South Pole and the moon, our Marines armed with Ka-Bar fighting knives – another Case company and invention – This is the story of America, too. An ode, the book is a warning as well: The most collected name in knives, Case is also the most counterfeited.

“Cutlery remains a brutal, cyclical, business, especially when competing against cousins.” explains Lockwood, “The industry has claimed many, Cases and coworkers, whether an illness contracted while traveling, selling, or in the harsh conditions of the factories. In fact, cutlery has the dubious distinction of having its own disease, grinder’s consumption. But it is now facing its greatest threat from inexpensive, often counterfeit, imports.”

Based in Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania – a region known as “The Magic Circle” among serious collectors, as the epicenter of America’s greatest age of cutlery manufacturing – The Cases were an itinerant clan. Homesteading, traveling and selling each year, expanding, they helped to settle Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas, while another branch of the family moved to Colorado to continue the ancestral art. Of the 32-plus companies, only 3 still exist – W.R. Case & Sons, Alcas, and Burrell Cutlery – but Case continues to reign after 140 years; an American dynasty indeed.

About Collector Books: Founded in 1974 by Bill Schroeder, Collector Books publishes over 400 unique pricing guides for serious collectors. www.collectorbooks.com

About the Author: Brad Lockwood is the author of four novels, including Sellout and Wink. He has one daughter, Haylei, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Case Cutlery Dynasty: Tested XX is his first major nonfiction work.