laboring in the factory. Business career The Kohler Company grew rapidly in the early twentieth century, developing new products such as the industry's first one-piece built-in bathtub. By 1914, the Company employed 950 people and had sales offices in four major American cities and in London. In the First World War, the Company shifted to production of war materials. But in the 1920s it expanded its products and sales, building, among other things, a motor powered dishwasher, an electric clothes washer, and a gasoline powered generator. Kohler created the world's largest pottery plant to mass-produce toilets and sinks. Kohler reduced work hours for his employees, paid above-average salaries, provided group life and health insurance and workingmen's compensation, and presented holiday and retirement gifts. Beginning in 1917, his plan for a nearby housing complex for Kohler workers began to become a reality. Kohler Village, a area, was designed to provide high quality and affordable home ownership in a beautiful and rationally designed community. The following year, the Company opened The American Club across the street from the main factory, a Tudor-style living and recreational facility for some 250 newly arrived immigrants. The Great Depression forced the Kohler Company to slow production and limit hours. Kohler tried to keep his workers employed and well-paid, but the cutbacks were unpopular. In 1934, some long-time employees and several outside labor leaders joined hands to call a strike. The Kohler strike of 1934 Kohler was a staunch believer in the "open shop" and, along with many other industrialists, did not want national unions to represent all employees and dictate company policy. He and a majority of his workers created a company union in 1933, but this did not satisfy labor leaders. A year later, with strikes breaking out throughout the nation, the American Federation of Labor focused on the Kohler Company. It made 14 demands, including a 62.5 percent wage increase. Kohler rejected the demands and shut down the plant. The first Kohler strike began on July 16. Pickets blocked access to the plant and violence on both sides quickly broke out. Bullets and tear gas entered the scene on July 27, and two men were killed and 43 injured before the National Guard arrived and restored peace. In 1935 his employees voted to form a company union; but that same year Congress passed the Wagner Act, encouraging major unions to organize under the authority