USM

a reference to the USM Corporation, an American manufacturer of shoe making equipment and other industrial machines. Founded in 1899 as the United Shoe Machinery Company, by the mid-1900s it had developed and marketed nearly 800 new and improved shoe machines and patented more than 9,000 inventions. In the 1960s, the company expanded its operations and established new divisions to produce such things as paper products, wire brushes, precision metal parts and tools. No longer specializing in shoe machines, it shortened its name to the USM Corporation in 1968. However, in the following years the additional divisions began to fail and in 1976 USM was bought by another American company.