The Wooster Brush Company
Paintbrushes, roller covers and frames crafted in Wooster, Ohio since 1851.
🏭 American Manufacturing
Our assessment
Company details
Where The Wooster Brush Company products are made
The company has been on the same site since 1909, a few blocks from where Adam Foss made his first brushes. Manufacturing, shipping, administration and warehousing together occupy more than 888,000 square feet, and the workforce averages sixteen years of service each.
Wooster invented the angle paintbrush in 1937 — now the most popular style in the country — and introduced synthetic fabrics for roller covers in 1964, which became an industry standard.
When the US government halted trade with China in 1941, the China bristle that paintbrushes depended on stopped arriving. Wooster engineered around it with DuPont synthetic filament and supplied nylon brushes to the military. Those brushes became the model for the modern paintbrush.
The founding year, the Wooster, Ohio manufacturing location and the American-made language are published by the company on woosterbrush.com. The American Manufacturing label reflects the absence of a blanket origin claim across the full catalogue.
The story
In 1851 Adam Foss bought a crate of hog bristles at an unclaimed freight auction, travelled to Wooster, Ohio to visit his brother, and the two of them attached the bristles to wooden handles and sold the results door to door. That was ten years before the Civil War, and it was the beginning of a company that is still in the same town.
The firm moved to a larger building a few blocks south in 1909 and never moved again. Along the way it developed FOSS-SET cement to hold bristles permanently — demonstrated by a man called Ted the Tester hanging from the bristles of a brush — and in 1937 invented the angle sash brush, which is now the most common paintbrush shape in America.
Two of its biggest innovations came from constraint rather than ambition. Cut off from Chinese hog bristle in 1941, Wooster worked with DuPont synthetic filament and effectively invented the modern brush. In 1964 it did the same for roller covers with synthetic fabrics, which is now how nearly every roller is made.
Why they matter
Painting tools are the sort of thing most people buy on price and professionals buy on performance, and the gap between those two buyers is what has kept an American manufacturer viable in the category. Wooster’s Sherlock frames and Pro/Doo-Z covers are specified by trade painters who go through them constantly and notice the difference.
The company is privately held and the largest of its kind in the country, which means it answers to nobody about where it makes things. It has more than 888,000 square feet in a town of about 27,000 people in Wayne County, Ohio, and an average employee tenure of sixteen years — the two facts are related.
It is also a reminder that American manufacturing history is mostly unglamorous and extremely long. A hundred and seventy-five years of making brushes in one Ohio town is not a story anybody tells, and it is the reason the angle brush in your hand is shaped the way it is.
Shop The Wooster Brush Company products
Browse Wooster brushes, roller covers and frames stocked on the Buy American Campaign store.
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Frequently asked questions
Are Wooster brushes made in the USA?
Wooster states on its own website that it has crafted its paint applicators and tools in Wooster, Ohio for 175 years and describes its range as American-made solutions. Because the company does not publish a blanket origin claim covering every one of its 2,000-plus products, we label it American Manufacturing.
Where is The Wooster Brush Company located?
In Wooster, Ohio, on the site it moved to in 1909 — a few blocks from where the company started in 1851.
How old is The Wooster Brush Company?
Founded in 1851, ten years before the American Civil War.
Did Wooster invent the angle paintbrush?
Yes. Wooster introduced the angle paintbrush in 1937 to improve control and ergonomics. It is now the most popular brush style in the United States.