Palmgren's original building at 8383 S. Chicago Ave.

Clarence Palmgren founded Palmgren Steel Products in 1919. A graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Clarence is credited with designing and manufacturing machine vises and rotary tables for work holding that gave impetus to the entire metalworking industry. The key was making vises in a production setting that could be reproduced exactly the same way over & over. Clarence was able to offer high-quality, low cost vises (and replacement parts) at a time when all work holding devices were individually hand made by tool & die makers and very expensive.

Clarence Palmgren didn't start out as a manufacturer of vises and machine tools. He started out as a distributor of fasteners and screen wire. When business slowed, the company took on job shop work making punches, dies & splice bars for the local steel mills in Chicago. In1926, after making a special order of vises for one of his customers, Clarence came up with the idea of making a heavy-duty angle vise. His original design came in three sizes and sold from $65.00 to $75.00. All were hand made by tool & die makers and did not have interchangeable parts.

The business grew rapidly and by the early 1940's Palmgren was mainly a manufacturer of mass-produced machine vises. The company took on job shop work again with World War II. This time their primary customer was the United States Government along with the aircraft industry. Palmgren's major product was airplane propeller servicing equipment and underwater cutting torches. In the late 1940's with the advent of jet aircraft, Palmgren was forced out of the aircraft tools industry. To replace this business, rotary and indexing tables were added to the product line.

Palmgren's advertising in the 50's and 60's was as much educational as promotional. The ads were directed towards the end-user and explained to mechanics the proper way to use a vise, and how they could profit by using it. Today, thanks to Palmgren, the uses for vises and rotary tables are common knowledge. The machine vise is now so widely used that it is accepted as the natural way to hold work.

Clarence's son, Chuck Palmgren joined the company in the 1960's and continued innovating products and promoting the company. Over the next 20 years, Palmgren added several vises, tables, and accessories to the line while refining the production process.

Today, Palmgren Steel Products retains the Palmgren name, the products and the American production facilities. Since 1998, Palmgren has used its IQ Line to introduce a new line of Machine Tools designed for metalworking. And 2003 marks the introduction of Palmgren's Woodworking tools, with some truly innovative features like a built-in dust collection system, and motors that work at full torque at all speeds.

Palmgren's founder, Clarence Palmgren had this to say about the future back in 1969, "If we ever put machine shops on space stations we're going to need work holders that withstand low and high temperatures. Under seas and in sub-terrestrial areas there are similar problems. For the last 300 or 400 years we have worked in man's environment. We are going to where man has never been before, and we're going to be working there, below sea, sub-terrestrial and in outer space."

Palmgren Steel Products is extremely proud of its company, employees and the reputation of its products. Rejects and malfunctions are almost non-existent. The products speak for themselves.