The papers of surrealist artist Gertrude Abercrombie date from circa 1880-1986, with the bulk of the material dated 1935-1977, and measure 5.9 linear feet. Found within are biographical material; correspondence (mostly incoming letters) with friends, museums, and galleries; files for artists that interested her; writings and notes, including five journal-type notebooks; scattered personal business records; two sketchbooks by Abercrombie and additional sketches and drawings, some by others; printed material, audio recordings, one scrapbook, photographs, and estate records.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of surrealist artist Gertrude Abercrombie date from circa 1880-1986, with the bulk of the material dated 1935-1977, and measure 5.9 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence (mostly incoming letters) with friends, museums, and galleries; artists files; writings and notes, including five journal-type notebooks; scattered personal business records; two sketchbooks by Abercrombie and additional sketches and drawings, some by others; printed material, audio recordings, one scrapbook, photographs, and estate records.
Biographical material consists of biographical notes, Gertrude Abercrombie's will, address books, and a file titled "memorabilia." Personal and professional correspondence consists mainly of incoming letters and some drafts of Gertrude Abercrombie's outgoing letters. Letters from museums and galleries concern loans of paintings and exhibitions. A large amount of the personal correspondence consists of post cards including many antique ones, as well as cards containing original art work by Julio de Diego, Jerry [Jerome] Karidis, Karl Priebe.
Artist files consist of correspondence, printed material, and photographs concerning painters, writers, a jazz musician, and a photographer. The individuals represented are: Dudley Huppler, Jerome Karidis, Karl Priebe, James Purdy, Sonny Rollins, Carl Van Vechten, Wendell Wilcox, John Wilde, and Thornton Wilder.
Writings and notes include reminiscences, miscellaneous writings and notes, and a girlhood diary with brief entries. Five notebooks contain a variety of writings dating from 1953 through 1975, and undated. One volume concerns only her second husband Frank Sandiford.
Business records include a painting catalog on file cards, mailing and guest lists, and miscellaneous sales records. In addition, six notebooks record expenses, sales, inventories, mailing lists, a register of paintings, and a guest book.
There are two sketchbooks, Christmas card designs, sketches and drawings done by Gertrude Abercrombie. There are also prints, drawings, and a painting by Emil Arman, B. Evans, de Diego, and unknown artists.
Printed material consists of articles and clippings about Gertrude Abercrombie, exhibition catalogs, and reproductions. Also included are books by friends inscribed by the authors, among them: Nelson Algren, Richard Armour, Dudley Huppler, James Purdy, Ned Rorem, Paul Warren [pen name of Abercrombie's second husband, Frank Sandiford], Studs Terkel, and Thornton Wilder.
Audio recordings (33-1/3 rpm phonograph alums) are inscribed to Gertrude Abercrombie by the artists. Orlando's album cover, designed by Abercrombie, incorporates one of her paintings.
Records of the Estate of Gertrude Abercrombie and the Gertrude Abercrombie Trust, Donald Baum, Executor, consist mainly of correspondence with the institutions that were offered works of art by Gertrude Abercrombie and from her personal collection. Also included are general correspondence, financial and tax records, and legal documents.
There is one scrapbook dated 1943 containing photographs and printed material.
Photographs are of art work, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects; negatives, slides, and transparencies are included in this series, too. Photographs of art include the work of Gertrude Abercrombie, Karl Priebe, and Charles Sebree. People pictured are Gertrude Abercrombie and family, including her parents, Richard I. Livingston, Dinah Livingston, and Frank Sandiford. There are also 19th and early 20th century photographs of ancestors. Among the images of friends are: Ivan le Lorraine Albright, Arnold Blanch, Dudley Huppler, Doris Lee, Karl Priebe, and Richard Purdy. Photographs of jazz artists include: Louis Armstrong, George Davis, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Orlando, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughn, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Of particular note the portraits of Gertrude Abercrombie and Dizzy Gillespie by Carl Van Vechten.Among the photographs of places are interior views of Gertrude Abercrombie's home and studio, unidentified landscapes, travel pictures of San Francisco and commercially produced stereopticon slides of other locations. Miscellaneous subjects are automobiles, cats, exhibition installations, and a still life setup.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1902-1976 (Box 1, OV9; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1935-1977 (Boxes 1-2; 1.65 linear ft.)
Series 3: Artist files, circa 1935-1977 (Box 2; 0.25 linear ft.)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, circa 1919-1977 (Box 3; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 5: Business Records, circa 1944-1977 (Box 3; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 6: Art Work, circa 1939-1975 (Boxes 3, 7; O.2 linear ft.)
Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1906-1977 (Boxes 3-4; 1.6 linear ft.)
Series 8: Audio Recordings, circa 1970-1974 (Box 7; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 9: Estate Records, circa 1976-1986 (Box 5; o.5 linear ft.)
Series 10: Scrapbook, circa 1943(Box 5; 1 folder)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1880-1978(Boxes 5-7; OV8, 1.0 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Surrealist painter Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977) lived and worked in Chicago and was a prominent member of Chicago's Hyde Park arts community.
Abercrombie was known for surrealist oil paintings featuring dreamlike landscapes and fantasies. Her wide circle of friends included locally and nationally known artists, writers, and jazz musicians who made her home a popular avant-garde salon. She was the inspiration for Richie Powell's "Gertrude's Bounce" and, appeared as a fictional character in Malcolm, Eustace Chisholm, and as herself in Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue all by James Purdy.
The only child of Tom and Lula Janes [Jane] Abercrombie, Gertrude was born in Austin, Texas in 1909, while her opera singer parents were in town with a traveling company. In 1913, the family relocated to Berlin to further Jane's career, but the outbreak of World War I forced their return to the United States. They lived with Tom Abercrombie's family in Alledo, Illinois, before permanently settling in Chicago.
Gertrude Abercrombie had a facility with language and possessed musical and artistic talents. After graduation from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a degree in romance languages in 1929, she studied figure drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a short time. She then enrolled at the American Arcademy of Art, also in Chicago, for a year long course in commercial art. Her first job was drawing gloves for Mesirow Department Store ads, followed by a stint working as an artist for Sears.
By 1932, Gertrude Abercrombie began painting seriously. The following summer, she participated in an outdoor art fair in downtown Chicago where she made her first sale and received favorable mention in a newspaper review of the event. Abercrombie's work that featured self-portraits and recurring images of personal symbols - trees, horses, owls, keys, shells, doors, stairways, ladders - began to attract attention. Beginning in 1934, Gertrude Abercrombie was employment as a painter in the WPA Federal Art Project in 1934, enabling her to feel validated as an artist and move from the home of her conservative, Christian Scientist parents to her own apartment. The Chicago Society of Artists presented a solo exhibition of Abercrombie's work in 1934, and in 1936 she showed at the Katharine Kuh Gallery (along with Rita Stein and Nicola Ziroli). In 1936 and 1938 Gertrude Abercrombie won prizes at the Art Institute of Chicago's Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity.
She left the WPA in 1940 and married lawyer Robert Livingston. Their daughter, Dinah, was born in 1942, and they soon moved to a large Victorian house on South Dorchester St. where Gertude lived for the remainder of her life. The couple divorced in 1948. That same year she married Frank Sandiford, a music critic whose pen name was Paul Warren. An accomplished improvisational pianist, Gertrude Abercrombie became friends with many prominent jazz artists whom she met through Sandiford; in fact, Dizzy Gillespie performed at their wedding. Abercrombie and Sandiford separated in 1964.
The 1940s through 1950s were Gertrude Abercrombie's most productive and prolific period. Although she no longer painted many portraits, he work remained focused on the same themes and symbols. She believed that art was about ideas rather than technique and insisted that "It is always myself that I paint." During this period, Amercrombie exhibited widely in group shows and had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Associated American Artists (New York), and Leonard Linn, Inc. (Winnetka, Ill.)
By the late 1950s, Gertrude Abercrombie began a long decline. Alcoholism started to take a toll. She suffered serious financial reverses, and in 1964 separated from Frank Sandiford. Debilitating arthritis eventually landed her in a wheel chair, and she became reclusive. In 1977, very near the end of her life, Gertrude Abercrombie was honored with a well-received retrospective exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. She was able to attend the reception and enjoy seeing the many old friends who were at the event.
Gertrude Abercrombie died in Chicago in 1977. Her will established The Gertrude Abercrombie Trust that cared for and distributed to various institutions her own paintings and a personal collection of works by other artists to selected institutions, mainly in the Midwest.
Related Material:
A photograph of Gertrude Abercrombie at home with her painting "Slaughter House", was donated by Donald Baum to the National Collection of Fine Arts in 1979 and transferred to the Archives of American Art that same year.
Provenance:
Donald Baum, executor of both the estate and trust of Gertrude Abercrombie, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art in 1978 and 1986.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers document the life and work of William R. Hutton, a civil engineer during the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Materials include diaries, notebooks, correspondence, letterpress copy book, printed materials, publications, specifications, photographs, drawings, and maps that document the construction of several architectural and engineering projects during this period. Most notable are the records containing information related to the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Hudson River Tunnel, the Washington Aqueduct, the Kanawha River Canal, and the Washington/Harlem River Bridge. There are also several records about railroads in the state of Maryland, the District of Columbia and elsewhere, including the Western Maryland Railroad, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Colorado Midlands Railway, Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad, the Northern Adirondack Railroad, and the Pittsfield and Williamstown Railroad. The records can be used to track the progression of these projects, and engineering innovation during the late 1800s to the early 1900s.
Scope and Contents:
These papers document William R. Hutton's professional career as a civil engineer and his personal affairs. Although the personal materials in the collection provide insight into a man and a family that have been largely forgotten by biographers, it is the professional materials that are perhaps the most interesting to researchers. They provide a compelling narrative of the push to the West that occurred in 19th century America and the internal improvements movement typified by the American System plan proposed by Henry Clay. Perhaps best remembered for the high tariffs that accompanied it, the American System plan was also concerned with the advancement of internal improvements, such as canals, that would unite the East and West in communication, travel, and trade. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal can be seen as one of the products of this movement (1) and was in fact initially heralded as the first great work of national improvement (2).
The papers in this collection that are related to the construction and maintenance of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal are an invaluable documentation of efforts during this turbulent time to unite the eastern and western United States. They provide details of the canal from its initial construction to its decline with the incline at Georgetown project. The canal also serves as an example, or perhaps a warning against, federal involvement in state improvement efforts as it was the first project to be directly funded and staffed by the federal government (3). The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by then President John Quincy Adams whose toast, "to the canal: perseverance," (4) became an ironic omen, as construction of the canal took over twenty-two years to be completed. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal materials can be used as a case study for the problems encountered during canal building (5). These problems are best typified in the collection by the papers relating to the Georgetown incline. This project was headed by Hutton and was plagued with construction problems, boating accidents, and obsolescence from the moment of its completion. Despite these issues, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal remains a structure of historical significance in America. As the third and last effort to construct an all-water route to the West (6), the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is an important artifact of 19th century attitudes and efforts towards commerce, trade, travel, and communication between the eastern and western United States. Other significant canals and water structures represented in the collection are the Kanawha Canal, the Washington Aqueduct, and a large collection of materials relating to the Kingston Water Supply (New York).
One of the most significant internal improvements made during this time was the railroad. The legal conflicts that arose between the canal companies and railroads is also represented in the materials relating to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. These materials specifically deal with the legal conflict's between the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The development and construction of the railroads is also represented in the materials documenting the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad, the Northern Adirondack Railroad, the Western Maryland Railroad, the Mexican National Railroad, the Colorado Midlands Railroad, and the Columbia Railroad.
The collection also demonstrates the spirit of innovation and invention that was prevalent in the engineering field in the nineteenth century. Joseph Gies writes, "...one of the distinctive characteristics of the great nineteenth century engineering adventurers was their readiness to gamble on the translation of theory into practice" (7). In this quote, he is speaking of the civil engineer Dewitt Clinton Haskins and a project that truly encapsulates engineering invention in the nineteenth century, the Hudson River Tunnel. Responding to the increase in the population of the City of New York in the late nineteenth century from sixty thousand to three and a half million, the Hudson River Tunnel was originally devised as a way to alleviate traffic and to transport train passengers directly across the Hudson River (8). Beginning with records dating from 1881 to 1901, the Hutton papers can be used to document not only the advances in engineering during this time but also the costs of progress. Haskins' initial efforts to build the tunnel using submerged air pressurized caissons were marked by failure and in some cases fatalities. Workers on the tunnel often suffered from what came to be known as "caisson disease" or "the bends," caused by the immense forces of compression and decompression experienced while working in the tunnels (9). This problem was so prevalent that as construction progressed the rate of worker deaths caused by "the bends" rose to twenty-five percent (10). Materials in the collection document worker complaints and deaths resulting from this disease as well as providing a technical record of the construction of the tunnel. The highlight of the materials relating to the Hudson River Tunnel is an album that contains photographs of workers in the tunnel and a detailed daily report of the construction progress on the tunnel that was maintained by Hutton's assistant, Walton Aims. The first hand account in these reports provides insight not only into the construction of the tunnel, but also the problems encountered.
Another project featured in the Hutton collection that was devised in response to the population explosion in the City of New York in the nineteenth century is the Harlem River Bridge, or as it is now known, the Washington Bridge. Known as one of the longest steel arch bridges of its time, the Harlem River Bridge also represents that spirit of invention and innovation that was prevalent in the civil engineering field during the nineteenth century. The collection provides an invaluable resource for those wishing to track the construction of the bridge from early concept drawings and proposals to finalized plans. Also present are photographs of the construction and workers. Societal response to the bridge in the form of newspaper and magazine clippings help to create the narrative of the Washington Bridge, and these are supplemented by correspondence from the builders, suppliers, and planners.
This collection also includes diaries, 1866-1901; letterpress copybooks, 1858-1901; correspondence on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Hudson River Tunnel, Washington Bridge over the Harlem River, and Maryland and Colorado railroads, 1861-1901, and on Hutton's financial and real estate affairs, 1835-1921; construction photographs of the Harlem River, Cairo, Poughkeepsie, Niagara bridges and the Hudson River Tunnel, Washington Aqueduct, and Capitol Dome (in the form of albumen, cyanotype, salted paper print); data and drawings; rolled land profile drawings; canal notes, 1828-1892; Hudson River Tunnel construction reports, 1889-1891; publications, drawings, and maps of railroad routes; pamphlets and reprints on hydraulic works and water supply; road, railway, bridge, and hydraulic construction specifications, 1870-1900; drawings (linen, oil cloth, and heavy drawing paper), and blueprints; account books, 1891-1899; and plans, drawings, field notebooks, and publications on American and European construction projects, especially in Maryland, New York, and France; personal correspondence detailing his role as executor for the estates of Benjamin H. Hutton, Joseph Hutton, Annie Theller, and the Countess H. De Moltke-Hvitfeldt and his relationships with his children, siblings, cousins, and colleagues, 1850-1942.
Materials are handwritten, typed, and printed.
Special note should be made that any materials dated after the year 1901 were added to the collection by another creator who is unidentified. It can be speculated that professional materials added after this date were contributed by his brother and colleague Nathanial Hutton or his son Frank Hutton. Personal materials contributed after this date may have been added by his wife, daughters, or other members of his extended family.
Series 1, Letterpress Copybooks, 1858-1901, consists of twenty seven letterpress copybooks containing correspondence between Hutton and other engineers, architects, and building suppliers. The letterpress copybooks in this series have been arranged chronologically. The books involve a process by which ink is transferred through direct contact with the original using moisture and pressure in a copy press. The majority of the correspondence is business- related. Some letterpress copybooks are devoted to specific projects such as the Washington/Harlem River Bridge, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad, Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The letterpress copybooks provide a record of correspondence written by Hutton, which makes it distinctive from the other correspondence in the collection. Most of the other correspondence has Hutton as recipient.
The letterpress copybooks also document Hutton's various residences throughout his life and provide a glimpse into the civil engineering profession at the time by demonstrating how engineers shared ideas and comments about projects. This can be supplemented with the printed materials in the collection as many of the authors also appear in the correspondence. Other topics covered in the letterpress copybooks include business reports (specifically the report of the president and directors of the Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad), records of people and companies involved in projects, pasted in engineering sketches, engineering specifications and notes, travel expenses and estimates, construction histories and progress, legal issues with family estates, tax information, Colorado Railroad, payment certificate schedules, St. Paul Railroad, personal correspondence, title guarantees, Hudson River Tunnel, financial matters, real estate matters, insurance information, sketches and drawings, supply lists, cost estimates, the Memorial Bridge, Coffin Valve Company, engineering expenses, engineering calculations, payroll notes for Kingston Water Supply, proposals, account information, Hutton Park, reservoirs, contract drafts, French Society of Civil Engineers, inspection results (specifically Piedmont Bridge), land descriptions, damage reports, Morse Bridge, Illinois Central Railroad, North Sea Canal, moveable dams, iron works, site histories, Potomac Lock and Dock Company, Kanawha River canal (lock quantities, specifications, payroll information), Pennsylvania Canal, and bills for services.
Series 2, Professional Correspondence, 1861-1901, consists of correspondence that relates to Hutton's architectural and engineering projects. This series is further subdivided into two subseries: Project Correspondence and General Correspondence. Subseries 1, Project Correspondence, 1876-1899, correspondence is divided by project and arranged alphabetically. Subseries 2, General Correspondence, 1861-1901, is arranged chronologically. Both series contain handwritten and typed letters. Some letters are on letterpress copybook pages and are most likely copies. Some materials are in French and Spanish. Special note should be made that this series does not contain all of the professional correspondence in the collection. Some correspondence has been separated according to project and placed in Series 8, Professional Projects, 1830-1965, in order to make it easier for researchers to access materials related to those subjects.
Subseries 1, professional correspondence topics include comparisons between construction projects (specifically comparisons of the Kanawha River Canal to other canals), supply lists, location recommendations, sketches, construction plans and modifications, bills for supplies and works, leaks in the gates, cost estimates, Brooklyn Water Supply, use of lake storage (Ramapo Water Supply), water supply to states and counties, damages to water supply pipes, estimates of water quantities, responses to construction reports, legal issues related to projects, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and payment for services.
Subseries 2, general correspondence topics include employment opportunities, committee meetings and elections, land surveys, sketches, engineering plans and ideas, work on projects, dismissal from projects, notes on supplies, Washington Aqueduct, construction progress, land purchases, Civil War, Jones Falls, cost of water pumps, steam drills, lots divisions and prices, repairs, report of the engineering bureau, tidewater connection at Annapolis, bridge construction, construction costs, statement of vessels that entered and cleared Baltimore, technical questions from colleagues, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, supply costs, letters of introduction, requests for reference, changes to plans and designs, survey reports, St. Andrew's lot, Canal Coal Company, publication process, American Society of Civil Engineers and its members, responses to project inquiries, Graving Dock gross revenue, job offers, specifications, trade figures, contracts, water levels, appointment dates and times, moveable dams, proposals for membership, salaries, Piedmont Coal Lands, maps, land profiles, Washington Bridge, board payments, Nicaragua Canal, Grant Coal Company, statistics, engineering notes, Hartford Bridge, water pressures, coal deposits, Colorado Coal, pipe lines, reservoirs, boat costs for canals, floods, bridges, letters of resignation, engines, Ruxton Viaduct, Colorado and Midland Railroad, Morse Bridge, share values, railroad locations, membership invitations, call for submissions, structural tests, record of accounts for room and board, appointments, water rights (Putnam County), publications, blueprints, visitation programs, cotton compresses, street trenches, pressures in dams, level tests, Portland Transportation bureau, trade information, concrete steel, Chicago drainage canal, ship canals, Augusta Cotton and Compress Company, Sooysmith case, Consolidated Gas Company, masonry, book binding, Columbia Railway Company, jetties, land grades, Chesapeake and Delaware canal, water wheels, pneumatic lock, tunnel arches, rifton power, Hutton's health, elevators, Brooklyn Bridge Terminals, girder weights, legal issues and their results, rating table for the Potomac, land profiles, transmission lines, transformers, water turbines, and water power on the Potomac River.
Correspondents for this series include the following: Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, Captain T.W. Symons, William Bryan, Ernest Flagg, John Hurd, Jake Wolfe, J.C. Saunders, J.H. Dolph, Charles J. Allen, G.H. Mendell, Virgil S. Bogue, B.A. Mounnerlyn, Edward Burr, H.G. Prout, R. William, H. Dodge, C.R. Suter, M. Mink, W.R. King, John Lyons, Alex Brown and Sons, John G. Butler, D. Condon, Bernard Carter, R.P. McCormick, D.R. Magruder, Andrew Banks, Isaac Solomon, C.J. Mayer, C.W. Kern, John Herring, James S. Mackie, D.R. Magunde, D. Rittaguide, R.S. Stevens, J.L. Raudolph (Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), J.M. Lane, W.D. Stuart, W.G.P. Palmer (Committee Church of the Ascension), C. Crozet, General W. Hughes, V.R. Maus, J.M. Hood (Western Maryland Railroad Company), Ernest Pontzen, M. Haus, William F. Craighill, Harry Hutton, John W. Pearce, Reverend James A. Harrald, William Watson, A.L. Rives, Thomas Monro, A.F. Croswan (Commander United States Navy), H.R. Garden, William McAlpine, James Forrest, Wm. Bloomsfield, Daniel Ammen, Linel Wells, A. and Otto Sibeth, Alfred Noble, Clemens Hershel, Sidney Warner, E.H. de Rheville, Theodore Cooper, William Findlay Shunk, Lewis S. Wolfe, Rufus Mead, Theodore F. Taylor, John Bogart, J. Whaler, B. Williamson, Colonel F.V. Greene, Robert H. Sayre (Lehigh Valley Railroad Company), Charles W. Pussey, Louis Q. Rissel, V.C. Bogue, H.C. Eckenberger, Melville E.G. Leston, Edwin Parson, Rudolph Hering, R.S. Hale, F.M. Turner, Thosl Martindale, Justus C. Strawbridge, William M. Ayresm, R.L. Austin, A.M. Miller, P. Livingston Dunn, T.J. Cleaver, C.S. Dutton, H.A. Carson, William Bainbridge Jaudon, H.A. Presset, Thomas H. McCann, Russel Sturgis, H.G. Prout, Alexis H. French, John K. Cowen, F.W. Williams, J. Waldorf, B.H. Byrant, B.H. Jones, M.H. Rogers, J.W. Ogden, General W. Cashing, William Longhudge, A.J. Cameron, T.L. Patterson, J.J. Hagerman, H. Wigglesworth, Charles B. Rowland, E. Bantz, W.G. Lathrop, Clarence King, George Rowland, George A. Tibbals (Continental Iron Works), George N. Vanderbilt, Eugene C. Lewis, F.P. Burt, Colonel John C. Clarke, Lieutenant Thomas Turtle, W.S.M. Scott, E. Bates Dorsey, Bernard Carter, George M. Shriver (Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), Russel Sturgis, Macmillan Publishing, James Abernethy, B. Baker, J.G.W. Fynje, A. Mallet, Jean Hersuy, L.F. Vernon Horcourt, Robert Lilley, A.J. Johnson, F.M. Colby, Henry D. Loney, A.S. Cameron, James A. Harrald, William Watson, John B. Lervis, A.L. Rives, Edwin F. Bidell, Frank H. Stockett, E. McMahon, C.F. Elgin, Enrique Budge, G. Clayton Gardiner, Dwight Porter, William A. Chapman, T.E. Sickels, Theodore Cooper, C.J. Warner, Institution of Civil Engineers, Robert Gordon, United States Coast of Geodetic Survey Office, C.P. Pattun, J.N. Putnam, Sidney B. Warner, H.D. Fisher, Union Pacific Railway Company, Lewis S. Wolle, George E. Waring Junior, The American Exhibition, G.F. Swain, American Society of Civil Engineers, N.H. Whitten, U.S. Engineer Office, Government Works Committee, J.J. Hagerman, D. Jackson, Sterling Iron and Railway Company, E.P. Alexander, E. Williamson, Central Railway Company of New Jersey, William A. Underwood, F. Collingwood, James Dun (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company), Henry F. Kilburn, Louis A. Bissell, Virgil G. Boque, H.C. Eckenberger, Melville Egleston, Charles Parson, George Swain, Continental Iron Works, Rudolph Hering, J.B. Gordon, Mayor's Office (Baltimore), Harry Robinson, Pennsylvania Railway Company, W.H. Gahagan, L. Luiggi, B.H. Bryant, T.J. Cleaver (Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company), H.A. Carson, H.A. Presset (Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey), John K. Cowen, Vernon H. Brown, J. Waldorf, B.H. Bryant, L.F. Root, P.W. White, Metropolitan Railroad Company, Charles F. Mayer (Consolidated Coal Company, Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad Company), J.M. Lane (Western Maryland Railroad), Dr. R.S. Stewart (Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad), Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad (John Lyons, John G. Butler, D. Candon, R.P. McCormick, Andrew Banks), Thomas F. Rowland, J.A. Bensel, Walton Aims, S.D. Coykendall, H.C. Rogers, John F. Ward, T.B. Jewell, H.A. Pressey, C.S. Armstrong, J. Nennett, V.G. Bague.
Series 3, Personal Correspondence, 1850-1942, contains correspondence with immediate and extended family, specifically the heirs to the Benjamin H. Hutton and Joseph Hutton estates and Adele Gorman. Correspondence is primarily arranged chronologically, but some files have been divided based on subject or author (the Deer Park and Adele Gorman files), or by form (the Telegrams, and Cablegrams file). Special note is made of the posthumous correspondence file, which includes correspondence both relating to Hutton's death and correspondence that was written by family members after the years of his death. The series contains both hand written and typed letters. Some correspondence is in French. The correspondence demonstrates his relationship with his children specifically Elizabeth (Bessie) Hutton, and illuminates his role in his family. This series also provides details about nineteenth century upper class society and activities. Special note should be made that this folder does not contain all of the personal correspondence contained in the collection. Some correspondence has been separated according to recipient, or subject in order to make researching these recipients or subjects easier.
Series 3 correspondence topics include: estate payments, distribution of assets, funds transfers, estate lines, conflicts with tenants, sketches, lot maintenance, real estate sales, deeds, real estate sales negotiations, congratulations wishes on new babies, family illnesses, family affairs and travels, traveling directions, personal investments, invitations for social occasions, family debts, professional interests, professional and personal appointments, family issues, requests for money, sketches, advice to children (specifically Frank Hutton), life insurance, books, letters of introduction, legal issues, funeral expenses, charity donations, advertisements, minutes from professional organizations, army enlistment, deaths of friends and family, recipes, estimates of personal expenses, renovations, stock certificates (Great Northern Railway Company, New York), food, social activities, the weather, marriages, real estate and construction plans, and loan agreements.
Correspondents include the following: Frank Hutton, Thomas B. Brookes, J.L. Marcauley, C.M. Matthews, Edward J. Hancy, John M. Wilson, H.A. Carson, William H. Wiley (of John Wiley and Sons Scientific Publishers, New York), Georgina Hutton, Pierre and Jane Casson, George McNaughlin, Henrietta Hutton, Aaron Pennington Whitehead, J.B. Wheeler, B. Williamson, Robert De Forest, Elizabeth (Bessie) Hutton, Grace Beukard, J.C. Saunders, Mary Hutton, William J. Pennington, C.S. Hurd, Henry C. Cooper, Henry J. Segers, S.F. Miller, Annie Theller, Alfred Noble, Maria Burton, Joseph Hobson, E. Lennon, F. Hulberg, Charles Gordon Hutton, Edward C. Ebert, A. William Lewin, E.R. Dunn, William P. Craighill, Theodore Cooper, P.I. Chapelle, Anita McAlpine, Clarence King, Victoria Raymond, and Adele Gorman.
Series 4, Personal Materials, 1835-1946, contains documentation about Hutton's personal finances, role as executor of the Benjamin H. Hutton, Joseph Hutton, Annie Theller, and Countess H. De Moltke-Hvitfeldt estates, Mary Augusta Hutton (wife), Mary Hutton (daughter), Frank Hutton, John Caulfield (son-in-law), and B.F. and C.H. Hutton. The series has been divided into four subseries: Financial Records, 1876-1901, Estate and Real Estate Records, 1835-1921, Other Huttons, 1876-1936, and Personal Material, 1878-1946. Subseries 2, Estate and Real Estate Records, 1835-1921, contains correspondence relating to specific family estates and family members. This correspondence was separated from Series 3, Personal Correspondence, 1850-1942, to make it easier for researchers to access all records relating to the family estates. This series includes hand written, typed, and printed materials. Some materials are in French. All material dated after 1901 has been added to the collection by other creators such as Hutton's wife and children.
Subseries 1, Financial Records, 1876-1901, includes account books, account records, correspondence related to bank accounts, bank statements, financial notes, bills and proofs of payment, rent receipts, tax bills (New York, Flatbush, Montgomery County), checks, money exchanges, receipts for tax payments, real estate receipts, stock and bond certificates, loan agreements, executor accounts, rebate calculation sheet, and tax and insurance payments.
Subseries 2, Estate and Real Estate Records, 1835-1921, includes property maps and information (rent, mortgage costs, deeds), correspondence, notes on estate distribution, estate assets, value of estate and estate payments, account records, loan agreements, receipts, proof of payments, checks, financial records, legal documents, insurance documents, tax bills, auction receipts, and wills relating to the estates of Benjamin H. Hutton, Joseph Hutton, Countess H. de Moltke-Hivtfeldt, Annie Theller, and William R. Hutton. Also included are correspondence, property maps and information, and deeds and mortgages on Hutton properties.
Subseries 2, the estate and real estate records correspondence topics include: Virginia state building codes, construction costs, construction notices, purchasing offers for property, real estate prices, receipts of payments, property lines, real estate purchases and sales, real estate sales negotiations, deeds insurance estimates and costs, loan costs, property estimates, renovation costs, mortgages, property damages and repairs, property tax payments, insurance rates and payments, rent payments, telephone installation, building permits, rental agreements, reports on property condition, contracts of sale, conflicts with tenants, changes of address, deeds, distribution of estate monies, details about the Countess' illness, estate arrangements, changes of address, problems arising out of estate distribution, payment of debts, will details, selling of mortgage shares, accounts, estate settlement, money cables and transfers, dealings with lawyers, rent on Hutton Park property, legal and accounting fees, power of attorney transfer, investments, property security, land appraisals, lists of assets, legacy taxes, mortgages transfers, property management, Flatbush property, property rent and values, and physicians bills.
Correspondents include the following: A.C. Weeks, Walter I. Green, John D. Probsh, A.G. Darwin, Thomas H. McCann, Allan Farguhar, Thomas Dawson, Potter and Crandall Real Estate and Insurance Brokers, George C. Tilyou, H.D. Olephant, F. Winston, Richard E. Calbraith, Frank P. Martin, Henry DeForest, Henry C. Cooper, Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, John Ecker, C.K. Avevill, Georgina Hutton, Edward J. Hancy, Robert Graham, W.M. Bennett, Willis E. Merriman, Nathan L. Miller, Harry Hutton, Marquise de Portes (Adele Gorman), Annie Theller, Samuel L. Theller, Mrs. R. Locke, Frank Z. Adams, John Palmer (Secretary of State, New York), J.T. Cammeyer, Frank P. Martin, Florence Theller, Francis H. Seger, Henry C. Cooper, D.W.G. Cammeyer, Campbell W. Adams, Jane Casson, Elizabeth Hutton, Rene de Portes, H.G. Atkins, Grace Beukard, Aaron Pennington Muikhead, J.E. Delapalme, T.H. Powers, Egerton L. Winthrop Junior, George B. Glover, William Jay and Robert W. Candler, B. Williamson, J.E. Knaff, Cornelius C. Vermeule, S.V. Hayden, Charles G. Landon[?], H.A. Hurlbert, F.A. Black, John L. Calwalder, the Health Department of New York, A.G. Darwin, William Laue, Frederick Frelinghuysen, Charles S. Brown, Henrietta Hutton, Edward Gelon.
Subseries 3, Other Huttons, 1874-1936, includes professional drawings and proposals, checks, insurance information, correspondence, tax information, medical information, tax bills, relating to Mary Augusta Hutton (wife), Mary Hutton (daughter), Henry and Harry Hutton, Frank Hutton (son), John Caulfield (son-in-law), B.F. Hutton, and C.H. Hutton.
Subseries 4, Personal Materials, 1878-1946, contains handwritten property notes, school notes, sermons, travel documents, menus, Christmas cards, jewelry box, postal guide, typed religious materials and flyers.
Series 5, Diaries, 1866-1901, contains twenty nine diary books that document both Hutton's personal and professional life. These diaries provide not only a record of Hutton's life, but were also used by Hutton himself as a reference tool. When working on projects he would refer to notes and observations he made in his diary (as evidenced by notes made in his diaries). The first pages of the diaries often list his height, weight and clothing sizes as they varied from year to year. A researcher could probably use the cashbooks (see Series 7) and the diaries in conjunction as both detail the purchases made by Hutton. Many of the diaries also include a short record of accounts in the back. The diaries are arranged chronologically.
Topics found in the diaries include short form accounts of daily activities and appointments, records of the weather, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project, construction progress on projects, steam pumps, sketches and calculations, extension of Washington railroads, cost of food, work supplies, travel costs, costs of goods and food, work deadlines, home renovations, visits to family, cash accounts, accounts of household duties, produce on Woodlands property, records of deaths, debts owed, account of clearing Woodlands property, church visits, Hancock and Tonoloway Aqueduct, canals, Drum Point Railroad, Montgomery C. Meigs, Washington Aqueduct, Annapolis Water Works, telegram costs, wages for Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project, William Craighill, Morris Canal, Annapolis Railroad and Canal, professional duties (inspections), Kanawha River Canal, travel schedules, professional expenses, cash received from Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, John's Dam, cathedral construction (St. Patricks?), Piedmont Bridge, Cumberland, account of farm property belonging to Major Campbell Bruns, Cunard Pier, Marquise de Portes, rent costs, Baltimore Canal, Kingston Water Supply, Croton Orange Estate, Pierre Casson, Hudson River Tunnel, Washington/Harlem River Bridge, entertainment costs, Greenwood cemetery, train schedule, notes on illness, real estate sales, Hutton Park, Benjamin H. Hutton estate and heirs, estimates, accounts of correspondence received and sent, Central Railroad, rent on Orange properties, addresses, contracts and building supplies for projects, personal finances, Joseph Hutton property on Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, amounts paid and received, medical appointments, Ramapo Water Company, drawing progress of maps and diagrams, Harbor Board (New York), property repairs, inspection and test reports, reservoirs, lists of birthdays, Boston Tunnel, family financial issues, tax payments, and prayers.
Series 6, Notebooks, 1860-1900, document the engineering and architectural projects worked on by Hutton. The series has been divided into three subseries: Subseries 1, Engineering and Survey Field Notes, 1860-1899; Subseries 2, Notebooks, 1871-1886; and Subseries 3, Notes, 1863-1900. Subseries 1, Engineering and Survey Field Notes, 1860-1899, contains sixteen field notebooks used by Hutton. Subseries 2, Notebooks, 1871-1886, contains seven notebooks. Subseries three, Notes, 1863-1900, contains four documents.
Some notebooks correspond to specific projects such as the Kanawha River Canal (lockgate and Phoenix Waterline), Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Buffalo Reservoir, Potomac Lock and Dock Company, Northern Adirondack Railroad account, Washington Aqueduct, Little Rock Bridge, Wilson-Adam Dock, Croten Brick Works, Hutton Park, Centennial Iron Works, Cumberland Canal, Williamsport Aqueduct, Catoctin Aqueduct, Alexandria Canal, Miller's Saw Mill, Seneca Dam, Union Tunnel, Cumberland Waterworks, Victoria Bridge, Welland Canal, North Sea Canal, Ramapo Water Company, Annapolis Water Company, Antietam Aqueduct, Interoceanic Canal, San Quentin Canal, Suez Canal, Amsterdam Canal, Harlem Bulkhead, Morris Canal, Blue Lake Canal, and Nicaragua Canal.
These notebooks should be used in conjunction with the other materials in the collection related to professional projects, as they often provide more detailed accounts of the construction and land surveys. Some of the notebooks contain entries from several different sources. The notebooks were probably shared among the engineers working on these projects. The notebooks also contain looseleaf ephemera such as hand written calculations, newspaper clippings, and blueprints. Languages found in this series are English and French.
Notebook topics include construction projects, supply needs, costs for labor, sketches (Woodland Mills, landscapes, dams, railway cars, Noland Tunnel), costs of crops, survey measurements, cost of livestock, aqueducts, inspections, canal bridges, seed prices, dams, measurements, coffer dam, canal maintenance, worker salaries, calculations, towpath sketches and measurements, shipping rates, worker accidents, water and coal used, geometrical sketches (Washington Aqueduct), locks, damage reports, interactions with other engineers (William Reading), coal shipments on the canal, travel expenses, land survey notes, drafts for correspondence, William Craighill, Victoria docks, lists of personal supplies used, construction time estimates, surveying expenses, telegram costs, sand pump, canal from Sherling to Tuxedo Bay, analysis of several artificial lakes and reservoirs, distances of reservoirs to main pipes, calculations for the Austin Wheel, engine construction, bridges, gauging water depth, results and observations of tests and performance, problems with construction, to-do lists, cost of land surrounding towpaths, Fawcett's Lock, Tarman's Lock, comparison of costs in transporting coal by water and by rail, inspection notes, iron work, drainages, leaks, cost of supplies, watergates, harbor ferries, railroad station distances, flood protection, Panama Canal via the Nicaraguan route, cost of jetties, water levels, pressure of steam, boilers, steam and water cycle, water depth, cement, Great Falls, Virginia, waterflow, soundings, time of floats, flow of currents, rain fall measurements, tunnel measurements, cost of trenching San Francisco water supply, record of livestock, cost of food, rates of sawing woods and mills, preliminary railroad line measurements, profile of final line, and railroad line profiles.
Series 7, Cash Books, 1856-1899, contains seven cashbooks which list prices for personal items purchased by Hutton. Topics include groceries, church dues, clothes, hygiene products, cigars, some short journal entries about his work (Williamstown), concerts, dinners, family addresses, cakes, meals, cars, stamps, office supplies (pencils and papers), valentines, glasses, gloves, fabric, medicine, needles, diapers, tobacco, shoes (adult and childrens), travel expenses, telegrams, candles, newspapers, liquor, coal oil, jewelry, allowances given to family members, bank deposits, monies paid and received, taxes, subscriptions, tailoring costs, deposits and payments into estate trusts, and notes about payments to Benjamin H. Hutton heirs. The cashbooks also contain some personal loose leaf ephemera such as prayers, sketches, and engineering notes collected by Hutton.
Series 8, Professional Projects, 1830-1965, contains documents about engineering and architectural projects throughout Hutton's career, including information about the professional organizations and the legal issues in which he was involved. This series has been divided into eight subseries based on project, document form, and document subject. Some materials are in French and Italian.
Series 8, Professional Projects, also includes correspondence related to specific projects, primarily the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Hudson River Tunnel, the Washington/Harlem River Bridge, and the Georgetown Incline.
Topics include construction and repair to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, engineering and use of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, worker contracts, supply and labor purchases, design plans and proposals, construction and repair costs, supply notes and costs of supplies, water pressure and power, shipping materials and routes (specifically the shipping of coal), inspections and their findings, condition of canal dam and locks, water supply, drainage, sketches, board proceedings, business meetings, deeds, cost comparisons to other shipping methods, hiring processes, wages, cost estimates, Hutton's consulting fees, measurements and calculations, funding issues, worker conflicts, negotiations with municipal governments, payment schedules, bills for services, air pressure in Hudson River Tunnel, permission for construction, specifications, mortality rate among workers on the Hudson River Tunnel, construction reports, outlet incline, proposals for construction, letters of introduction, railroad versus water for trade, controversy with Tiersey, construction contracts, construction schedules, construction issues, construction progress, construction damage, basis for estimates, supply requests, internal politics, changes to construction plans, contract and price adjustments, issues with suppliers, construction delays, work permits, bills, worker issues, engineering notes, construction excavations, expenses, construction instructions, Union Bridge Company, lighting installations, construction processes, hiring practices, electrical conductors, water proofing, hydraulics, cement, concrete, payment of contributors, processes of approval for construction, meeting dates of the Harlem River Bridge Commission, and contract restrictions.
Correspondents include the following: W.W.M. Kaig, Henry Dodge, E. Mulvany, John Shay, James Clarke, H.D. Whitcomb, Horace Benton, J. Rellan, J.R. Maus, W.E. Merrill, A.P. Gorman, J.H. Staats, Vernon H. Brown, Charles H. Fisher (New York Central and Hudson River Railway Company), B. Baker, John Fowler, Benjamin and John Dos Passos, Charles B. Colby, Charles B. Brush, S. Pearson, Stanford White, Horace E. Golding, R.H. Smith, Daniel Lord, A. Fteley, Herbert Hinds, J.R. Bartlett, D.M. Hirsch, M.H. Bartholomew, Thomas O. Driscoll, W.E. Porter, Thomas F. Rowland, George Edward Harding, R.H. Dames, William Watson, James B. Eads, J.D. Bright, H. Aston, Charles Suley, A.M. Maynard, W.R. Henton, G. Geddes, H.P. Gilbut, Malcolm W. Niver (Secretary of the Harlem River Bridge Commission), J.D. Patterson, George Devin (Assistant Engineer Washington/ Harlem River Bridge), J.B. Wheeler, John Bogart, Charles Burns, J. McClellon, Rob Bassee, B. Williamson, Theodore Cooper, Lewis Cass Ledyard, R.M. Hunt, John Cooper, Henry Wilson, A.A. Caille, Myles Tierney, W. Pentzen, L.B. Cantfield, George Q. Grumstaid Junior, M.J. Funton, George Pierce, W.O. Fayerweather, Noah S. Belthen, Herbert Steward, W.M. Habirsham.
Subseries 1, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 1828-1965, consists of plans, blueprints, land profiles, drawings, boat rates, contract forms, order forms, descriptions of the canal, design information, engineering data, sketches, cost estimates, land titles, microfilm, business papers, supply bills, patent bills, news clippings, reports, specifications, stockholder's reports, receipts, water leases, printed materials, and correspondence.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project was started in 1828 and completed twenty two years later in 1850. The canal's main objective was to connect Georgetown to the coal banks above Cumberland, Maryland, providing a short and cheap trade route between the eastern and western United States. It was also hoped that the canal would provide greater communication and travel between these two regions. Plagued by natural disasters, and construction setbacks, the canal was never completed in time to be useful and became obsolete shortly after its completion. Canal trade was eventually put out of business by the increase of railroads. Although it was an important development in engineering at its inception, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is no longer in use and has become what locals affectionately refer to as "the old ditch." The canal was designated a National Historical Park in 1971 and consists of 184.5 miles of hiking and biking trails.
Subseries 2, Hudson River Tunnel, 1887-1901, consists of agreements for construction, certificates, contracts, and cost estimates, construction reports, engineering notebooks, engineering notes, sketches, land profiles, maps, progress profiles, plans, proposals, printed material, statements of expenses, and correspondence.
The Hudson River Tunnel project was started in 1874, and the final tubes were opened in 1910 after several construction setbacks. The tunnel connects Weehawken, New Jersey and Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, New York City. Today the Hudson River Tunnel, known as the North River Tunnels is used by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and New Jersey Transit rail lines.
Subseries 3, Harlem River Bridge, 1878-1982, consists of blueprints, printed materials, photographs, engineer's estimates, schedules, costs, reports, proposals, contracts, specifications, and correspondence.
The Harlem River Bridge project was started in 1885 and was completed in 1889. It spans the Harlem River in New York City, New York and connects the Washington Heights section of Manhattan with the Bronx. It was later named and is still known as the Washington Bridge and has been adapted over time to carry highway traffic. These adaptations have allowed the bridge to remain in use today.
Subseries 4, Other Projects, 1858-1832, consists of drawings, maps, blueprints, plans, proposals, cost estimates, bills, correspondence, sketches, land profiles, dimensions, engineering notes, account records, photostats, supply lists, calculations, legal documents, surveys, inspection reports, financial data, and measurements on architectural and engineering projects. Highlights of this subseries include: Western Maryland Railroad, Washington Aqueduct, Panama Canal, Ramapo Water Company, Piedmont Bridge, Northern Adirondack Railroad, Columbia Railroad, Morris Canal, Pittsfield and Williamstown Railroad, Suez Canal, St. Gothard Canal, Tansa Dam, Colorado Midland Railroad Company, Memorial Bridge, Mersey Tunnel, Little Rock Bridge, Kingston Water Supply, Kanawha River Canal, Florida Ship Canal, East Jersey Water Company, Consolidated Coal Company, Dismal Swamp Canal, Boston and Baltimore Tunnels, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Annapolis Water Company, Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad Company, and the Baltimore Beltline.
Subseries 5, Unidentified Project Files, 1872-1900, consists of bills of sale, engineering forms and regulations, cement test results and methods, census bulletin, contracts, cost estimates, correspondence, notes on publications, engineering data and notes, drawings, surveys, sketches, payrolls, photographs, and reports.
Subseries 6, Specifications, 1870-1900, consists of documents related to some of Hutton's projects, including specifications for bridges, reservoirs, canals, viaducts, docks, buildings, water works, and tunnels. Some specifications are more general, and some are blank proposal/specification forms. There are also proposals for estimates and a "call" or advertisement to contractors to bid on certain projects. Many of the specifications deal with projects in New York State, but projects in Pennsylvania, the City of Baltimore, and Europe are represented. The materials are arranged alphabetically by project name. There is one folder of documentation for the Potomac River Bridge (Arlington Memorial Bridge) in Washington, D.C. The Arlington Memorial Bridge was part of the 1901 McMillan Commission's plan for restoring Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's original plan for the capital. Two decades passed before construction was initiated by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White. The documentation for the Memorial Bridge consists of calculations and monetary figures for materials such as granite.
Subseries 7, Legal Documents, 1886, contains documents related to a patent infringement suit for moveable dams involving Alfred Pasqueau vs. the United States. This file contains both a printed version of the case and a handwritten statement from Hutton.
Subseries 8, Professional Organizations, 1870-1902, contains documents related to professional organizations where Hutton held membership. Specific organizations represented are American Institute of Architects, American Society of Civil Engineers, Institution of Civil Engineers, Boston Society of Civil Engineers, Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, Librarie Polytechnique, American Agency of "Engineering" in London, Imperial Institute, League of Associated Engineers, Railroad Corporation, American Institute of Mining Engineers, and the Century Association. Material in the subseries includes correspondence, candidates for membership, membership payments, membership lists, meeting minutes, schedule of terms, professional practices, charges, articles of association, invitations for membership, and election notes. Some materials are in French.
Series 9, Printed Materials, 1850-1913, contains a variety of printed materials relating to engineering and architectural projects written by Hutton and fellow engineers. This series can be used to examine not only professional developments of the period and responses to those developments, but also to track how ideas were transferred between engineers across countries and continents. This series should be used in conjunction with the professional correspondence found in this collection, as many of the authors also appear there. Some materials are in French, German, Spanish, and Italian.
Subseries 1, Printed Materials by Hutton, 1852-1900, includes printed papers on the Missouri flood wave, the Ravine du Sud, the Potomac waterfront, the Colorado midlands, and the application of water supply machinery.
Subseries 2, Printed Materials by Others, 1826-1913, includes printed materials on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canals, Tehuantec Ship Railway, Interoceanic canals and railways, jetties, Nicaragua Canal, uses of cements, mortars, concretes, steam power, harbors, Niagara Falls, Kanawha River canal, Mississippi River, Hudson River Bridge, sewage disposal, Washington Aqueduct, specifications, construction progress reports, hydraulic experiments, water supply, drainage, road surfacing, sea walls, water-cooling apparatus, pollution reports, bridges, pipes, channels, reservoirs, irrigation, water power, and sewers.
Subseries 2 contains an issue of The North American Review in which Hutton has specifically highlighted an article entitled, "The Inter-Oceanic Canal." Please see the container list for names of authors.
Subseries 3, Printed Materials with No Author, 1852-1903, includes printed materials on harbor reports, Annapolis Water Company, Ramapo Water Company, water departments and boards, maps, engineer's reports, sea walls, preservation of structures, annual reports, Coal and Iron Railway Company, sewers, Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad, contract specifications, proposals, social club life, Croton Water Supply, law suits, water supplies, moveable dams, reservoirs, East River Bridge, Eastern Canal, water filtration, Kingston New Water Supply, water pipes, locks, docks, contracts, construction reports, Croton Water Supply, and surveys. Also included are issues of journals such as Le Correspondant, Circular of the Office of Chief Engineers, The Club, VIII Congres International de Navigation, Journal of the Association of Engineering Studies, and Journal of the Franklin Institute.
Subseries 4, Newspaper, Journals and Magazine Clippings, 1873-1900, contains clippings from a variety of newspapers such as Scientific American, andRailroad Gazette. Subjects included are the Union Tunnel opening in Baltimore, Drum Point Railroad, railroad company conflicts, Washington/Harlem River Bridge, Metropolitan Railroad, Western Maryland Railroad, crop prospects, lumber trade, North Avenue Bridge, Nicaraguan Canal, harbors, river improvements, reactions to engineering projects, Belt tunnel, city transit, Washington, D.C. flood in 1880, tunnel shields, Springfield Bridge, railroad patents, Panama Canal, jetties, Hudson Tunnel, steel boilers, composition and use of cement, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Subseries 5, Oversized Printed Materials, 1889-1892, contains large printed materials related to the Washington Aqueduct, General Post Office Building, subway arches, cornices, Warwick's Castle, Neuschwanstein Castle, Renaissance paintings, botanical drawings, school buildings, church architecture, the Hospital for the Insane of the Army and Navy and the District of Columbia, the Panama Canal, Morningside Park, and the Mississippi Jetties. Also includes engravings of Hutton, T.N. Talfound, and F. Jeffrey and photographs of Montgomery C. Meigs, and Hutton. Some materials are in German and French.
References:
1. Ward, George Washington, "The Early Development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Project," Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science Series XVII, no. 9-11 (1899): 8.
2. Ibid., 88.
3. Ibid., 55.
4. Ibid., 90.
5. Sanderlin, Walter S., "The Great National Project: A History of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal," Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science Series LXIV, no. 1 (1946): 21.
6. Ibid., 282.
7. Gies, Joseph, Adventure Underground (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company Inc., 1962): 134.
8. Ibid., 131-132.
9. Ibid., 135-136.
10. Ibid., 145.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series.
Series 1: Letterpress Copybooks, 1858-1901
Series 2: Professional Correspondence, 1861-1901
Subseries 2.1: Project Correspondence, 1876-1899
Subseries 2.2: General Correspondence, 1861-1901
Series 3: Personal Correspondence, 1850-1942
Series 4: Personal Materials, 1835-1946
Subseries 4.1: Financial Records, 1876-1901
Subseries 4.2: Estate and Real Estate Records, 1835-1921
Subseries 4.3: Other Huttons, 1874-1936
Subseries 4.4: Personal Materials, 1878-1946
Series 5: Diaries, 1866-1901
Series 6: Notebooks, 1860-1900
Subseries 6.1: Engineering and Survey Field Notes, 1860-1899
Subseries 6.2: Notebooks, 1871-1886
Subseries 6.3: Notes, 1863-1900
Series 7: Cashbooks, 1856-1899
Series 8: Professional Projects, 1830-1965
Subseries 8.1: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 1828-1965
Not much is known about the history of William Rich Hutton outside of his role in architectural and engineering projects of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In many cases, he is spoken of only in reference to his projects, and the short biographies that have been written read more like a resume than a life story. Because of this lack of information, this note will focus on Hutton's professional accomplishments, but will attempt to make some comments on his personal life.
William Rich Hutton was born on March 21, 1826 in Washington, D.C., the eldest son of James Hutton (died 1843) and his wife, the former Salome Rich (1). He was educated at the Western Academy (Washington, D.C.) from 1837-1840 under George J. Abbot and then at Benjamin Hallowell's School in Alexandria, Virginia, where he received special training in mathematics, drawing, and surveying (2). Hutton began his professional career in California when he, along with his younger brother James, accompanied their uncle William Rich to work for the United States Army. His uncle was a paymaster for the army and Hutton became his clerk. They traveled around the new state paying the various platoons stationed there, but Hutton also occupied his time by drawing the landscapes and structures he saw in the settlements of Los Angeles, San Francisco, La Paz, Mazatlan, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Pedro, San Diego, and Cape San Lucas (3). These drawings are now held by the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Hutton held the position of clerk until the spring of 1849, and in July of that year he began working with Lieutenant Edward O.C. Ord and completed the first survey of Los Angeles and its surrounding pueblo lands and islands. Hutton continued surveying in California from 1850-1851. He was hired by William G. Dana to survey the Nipomo Ranch in San Luis Obispo County and also surveyed the ranches Santa Manuela and Huer-Huero, both owned by Francis Z. Branch. After his employment with Dana, he became the county surveyor for San Luis Obispo County, where he prepared the first survey and map of the region. He also continued to survey ranches for Captain John Wilson during this time. In August 1851, he resigned from his position as county surveyor and moved to Monterey where he worked as an assistant to Captain (later General) Henry W. Hallack, superintendent of the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine in Santa Clara County (4). He remained in this position until March, 1853 when he returned to Washington, D.C. by way of Mexico (5).
Hutton began his career as a civil engineer in Washington, D.C. He was first assigned to the position of assistant engineer on a survey of the projected Metropolitan Railroad in 1853, which was chartered to connect Washington, D.C. with the mainline of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1855 he began his professional relationship with Montgomery C. Meigs when he was appointed to the position of assistant engineer on the Washington Aqueduct. He also served as division engineer on this project until construction was shut down in 1861 because of the outbreak of the Civil War. Fortunately for Hutton, the construction on the Aqueduct was resumed in 1862, and when Congress transferred the supervision of the aqueduct project from the War Department to the Department of the Interior, Hutton was made chief engineer. By the end of the Civil War, Hutton's reputation as a civil engineer was established (6).
During this decade Hutton also served as the chief engineer for the Annapolis Water Works (1866) and as chief engineer for one of his most famous projects, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (1869-1871). Although some historians minimize Hutton as just one of many engineers to work on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, he did make one major contribution to its construction: the Georgetown Canal Incline. Perhaps the final effort of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal company to compete with the emerging and fast expanding railroad, the Georgetown Incline was designed to allow canal boats to travel through the canal with low water levels and to alleviate canal congestion. Unfortunately, by the time the incline was completed use of the canal had decreased so significantly that it was no longer needed to help control traffic (7). Despite this, Hutton continued to work as a consulting engineer for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company until 1881, when he was let go because of the dwindling fortunes of the company (7).
In the 1870s and 1880s Hutton was busy with several engineering projects. During 1871-1873, he was the chief engineer in the completion of the Western Maryland Railroad to Hagerstown and Williamsport (9). He also practiced as an architect with his brother, the prominent Baltimore architect Nathanial Henry Hutton, during the years 1873-1880. He relocated to New York in 1880, serving as chief engineer for the Washington Bridge in 1888 and 1889 and the Hudson River Tunnel from 1889 to 1891. In 1886, he became the consulting engineer for the New Croton Aqueduct and served in the same position for the Colorado Midland Railway between the years of 1886-1889 (10).
As his personal and professional correspondence shows, Hutton continued to work on various engineering and architectural projects until his death on December 11, 1901. In addition to these projects, he also invented the innovative system of locks and moveable dams used in the Kanawha River Canal. He was awarded the Diplome d'Honneur for this featat the Paris Exposition in 1878 (11). His correspondence also demonstrates how Hutton was respected within his professional community. These letters refer to the accuracy of his work, his willingness to help other colleagues and supply them with reference materials and information, and, in addition to all this, his politeness. It seems that these qualities defined not only his personality but also his ideology. In one of the cashbooks in the collection, dated 1899, a hand written note contains a religious parable of "The Straw." The phrase in this parable that speaks most to Hutton's work ethic, and to the spirit of inventors everywhere, is this: "Even so however lowly may be the act, however little opportunities we may have of assisting others, we may still do something. Let us beg to fulfil our duty in this regards by making ourselves useful to others by some little act of thoughtful charity..." (12). Hutton, in his dedication to civil engineering, seems to have lived up to this virtue, and in his work he changed the landscape of Washington, D.C. and New York.
The Fairy Godfather: Hutton's Personal History
His professional records reveal a man who was fiercely dedicated to his work. His obituary references his professional life more than his personal life (13). Despite his reputation in the professional engineering community, his personal records demonstrate that Hutton was also dedicated to his family and children. In 1855, he married Montgomery County native Mary Augusta Clopper (died 1915). Together they lived on her family's estate known as the Woodlands, and had five children: Frank C. Hutton, Mary Hutton, Elizabeth Hutton (later Caulfield), Rosa Hutton, and Annie Salome Hutton (14). It is at this estate that Hutton died and was buried. The personal letters to his wife found in the Woodlands Collection held at the Montgomery County Historical Society show a man in love and willing to take time from his work to write to his wife. His letters to his children show a similar interest and compassion. In the many letters found in this collection from his daughter Elizabeth (Bessie) one can see a father who is interested in not only his daughter's activities abroad, but also in her opinion. This interest also extends to his son Frank Hutton, as their correspondence shows Hutton offering his son advice on his own engineering projects.
Hutton also served as executor to many of his extended family's estates. Many letters show the conflicts that Hutton had to mediate and the dependence of his cousins on him for advice and money. Although his family was wealthy (his cousin was Benjamin H. Hutton whose daughters married into the court of Napoleon III), they were volatile, and his records seem to indicate that he served as a mediator for many of their disputes. In addition to this, as his nickname of Fairy Godfather suggests, Hutton was always willing to lend his family either financial or moral support when needed. Unfortunately, little other documentation concerning Hutton's personal life exists outside of this collection and the one held at the Montgomery County Historical Society.
References:
1. Waters, Willard O., "Introduction," California 1847-1852 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942).
2. Waters, Willard O., "Memoir," Glances at California 1847-1853 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942): ix.
3. Waters, Willard O., "Introduction," California 1847-1852 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942). and Waters, Willard O., "Memoir," Glances at California 1847-1853 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942): x-xi.
4. Waters, Willard O., "Introduction," California 1847-1852 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942).
5. Waters, Willard O., "Memoir," Glances at California 1847-1853 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942): xvii.
6. Waters, Willard O., "Memoir," Glances at California 1847-1853 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942): xvii-xviii.
7. Skramstad, Harold, "The Georgetown Canal Incline," Technology and Culture, Vol. 10, no. 4 (Oct. 1969): 555.
8. Business Correspondence, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 22 February 1881, William R. Hutton Papers, 1830-1965, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, box number 27, folder number 29.
9. "William Rich Hutton," The Club: A Journal of Club Life for Men and Women,(July 1894):37
12. Cashbook, 1899, William R. Hutton Papers, 1830-1965, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, box number 23, folder number 5.
13. The Woodlands Collection, Montgomery County Historical Society.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
The Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, 1870-1890, (AC0987). Contains materials relating to the construction of the Washington Aqueduct including a book of drawings illustrating reservoirs, tunnels, culverts, and other structural elements, a Government Senate Document relating to construction progress, scrapbooks created by Meigs that include newspaper clippings about the Washington Aqueduct project, water supply, engineering projects, building construction, architecture and other subjects. Collection is currently unprocessed, but is available for research.
Materials in Other Organizations:
The William Rich Hutton Papers, 1840-1961, are located at the Huntington Library in California (see http://catalog.huntington.org).
The collection contains 95 drawings, 13 letters, and 39 facsimile copies of letters and manuscripts. The illustrative material includes both watercolor and pencil drawings of California (including Los Angeles, Monterey, San Francisco, the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine, and the California missions), Baja California, Mexico, and Peru. There are also five pieces in the collection related to the author María Amparo Ruiz de Burton. In 1942, the Huntington Library published Glances at California 1847--853: Diaries and Letters of William Rich Hutton, Surveyor and California 1847--852: Drawings by William Rich Hutton.
The Hutton family papers are located at the Montgomery County Historical Society, Sween Library (see http://www.montgomeryhistory.org/sites/default/files/Family_Files.pdf).
The collection contains account books from the Woodlands estate, recipe books, livestock records, records of Mary Augusta Hutton (wife), Mary and Rose Hutton (daughters), newspaper clippings (including his obituary), correspondence, record books, deeds, bills and receipts, engineering papers, religious momentos (funeral service cards), and insurance papers.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Mr. and Mrs. James J. Madine, a relative of Hutton's and last owners of the Woodlands estate; the Department of Forests and Parks, Maryland; Louis Fischer; and Mr. and Mrs. Mayo S. Stuntz, 1965-1966, 1974.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The collection documents in photographs, scrapbooks, notebooks, correspondence, stock ledgers, annual reports, and financial records, the evolution of the telegraph, the development of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the beginning of the communications revolution. The collection materials describe both the history of the company and of the telegraph industry in general, particularly its importance to the development of the technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection is useful for researchers interested in the development of technology, economic history, and the impact of technology on American social and cultural life.
Scope and Contents:
The collection is divided into twenty-six (26) series and consists of approximately 400 cubic feet. The collection documents in photographs, scrapbooks, notebooks, correspondence, stock ledgers, annual reports, and financial records, the evolution of the telegraph, the development of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the beginning of the communications revolution. The collection materials describe both the history of the company and of the telegraph industry in general, particularly its importance to the development of the technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection is useful for researchers interested in the development of technology, economic history, and the impact of technology on American social and cultural life.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into twenty-seven series.
Series 1: Historical and Background Information, 1851-1994
Series 2: Subsidiaries of Western Union, 1844-1986
Series 3: Executive Records, 1848-1987
Series 4: Presidential Letterbooks and Writings, 1865-1911
Series 5: Correspondence, 1837-1985
Series 6: Cyrus W. Field Papers, 1840-1892
Series 7: Secretary's Files, 1844-1987
Series 8: Financial Records, 1859-1995
Series 9: Legal Records, 1867-1968
Series 10: Railroad Records, 1854-1945
Series 11: Law Department Records, 1868-1979
Series 12: Patent Materials, 1840-1970
Series 13: Operating Records, 1868-1970s
Series 14: Westar VI-S, 1974, 1983-1986
Series 15: Engineering Department Records, 1874-1970
Series 16: Plant Department Records, 1867-1937, 1963
Series 17: Superintendent of Supplies Records, 1888-1948
Series 18: Employee/Personnel Records 1852-1985
Series 19: Public Relations Department Records, 1858-1980
Series 20: Western Union Museum, 1913-1971
Series 21: Maps, 1820-1964
Series 22: Telegrams, 1852-1960s
Series 23: Photographs, circa 1870-1980
Series 24: Scrapbooks, 1835-1956
Series 25: Notebooks, 1880-1942
Series 26: Audio Visual Materials, 1925-1994
Series 27: Addenda
Biographical / Historical:
In 1832 Samuel F. B. Morse, assisted by Alfred Vail, conceived of the idea for an electromechanical telegraph, which he called the "Recording Telegraph." This commercial application of electricity was made tangible by their construction of a crude working model in 1835-36. This instrument probably was never used outside of Professor Morse's rooms where it was, however, operated in a number of demonstrations. This original telegraph instrument was in the hands of the Western Union Telegraph Company and had been kept carefully over the years in a glass case. It was moved several times in New York as the Western Union headquarters building changed location over the years. The company presented it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1950.
The telegraph was further refined by Morse, Vail, and a colleague, Leonard Gale, into working mechanical form in 1837. In this year Morse filed a caveat for it at the U.S. Patent Office. Electricity, provided by Joseph Henry's 1836 "intensity batteries", was sent over a wire. The flow of electricity through the wire was interrupted for shorter or longer periods by holding down the key of the device. The resulting dots or dashes were recorded on a printer or could be interpreted orally. In 1838 Morse perfected his sending and receiving code and organized a corporation, making Vail and Gale his partners.
In 1843 Morse received funds from Congress to set-up a demonstration line between Washington and Baltimore. Unfortunately, Morse was not an astute businessman and had no practical plan for constructing a line. After an unsuccessful attempt at laying underground cables with Ezra Cornell, the inventor of a trench digger, Morse switched to the erection of telegraph poles and was more successful. On May 24, 1844, Morse, in the U.S. Supreme Court Chambers in Washington, sent by telegraph the oft-quoted message to his colleague Vail in Baltimore, "What hath God wrought!"
In 1845 Morse hired Andrew Jackson's former postmaster general, Amos Kendall, as his agent in locating potential buyers of the telegraph. Kendall realized the value of the device, and had little trouble convincing others of its potential for profit. By the spring he had attracted a small group of investors. They subscribed $15,000 and formed the Magnetic Telegraph Company. Many new telegraph companies were formed as Morse sold licenses wherever he could.
The first commercial telegraph line was completed between Washington, D.C., and New York City in the spring of 1846 by the Magnetic Telegraph Company. Shortly thereafter, F. O. J. Smith, one of the patent owners, built a line between New York City and Boston. Most of these early companies were licensed by owners of Samuel Morse patents. The Morse messages were sent and received in a code of dots and dashes.
At this time other telegraph systems based on rival technologies were being built. Some companies used the printing telegraph, a device invented by a Vermonter, Royal E. House, whose messages were printed on paper or tape in Roman letters. In 1848 a Scotch scientist, Alexander Bain, received his patents on a telegraph. These were but two of many competing and incompatible technologies that had developed. The result was confusion, inefficiency, and a rash of suits and counter suits.
By 1851 there were over fifty separate telegraph companies operating in the United States. This corporate cornucopia developed because the owners of the telegraph patents had been unsuccessful in convincing the United States and other governments of the invention's potential usefulness. In the private sector, the owners had difficulty convincing capitalists of the commercial value of the invention. This led to the owners' willingness to sell licenses to many purchasers who organized separate companies and then built independent telegraph lines in various sections of the country.
Hiram Sibley moved to Rochester, New York, in 1838 to pursue banking and real estate. Later he was elected sheriff of Monroe County. In Rochester he was introduced to Judge Samuel L. Selden who held the House Telegraph patent rights. In 1849 Selden and Sibley organized the New York State Printing Telegraph Company, but they found it hard to compete with the existing New York, Albany, and Buffalo Telegraph Company.
After this experience Selden suggested that instead of creating a new line, the two should try to acquire all the companies west of Buffalo and unite them into a single unified system. Selden secured an agency for the extension throughout the United States of the House system. In an effort to expand this line west, Judge Selden called on friends and the people in Rochester. This led, in April 1851, to the organization of a company and the filing in Albany of the Articles of Association for the "New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company" (NYMVPTC), a company which later evolved into the Western Union Telegraph Company.
In 1854 there were two rival systems of the NYMVPTC in the West. These two systems consisted of thirteen separate companies. All the companies were using Morse patents in the five states north of the Ohio River. This created a struggle between three separate entities, leading to an unreliable and inefficient telegraph service. The owners of these rival companies eventually decided to invest their money elsewhere and arrangements were made for the NYMVPTC to purchase their interests.
Hiram Sibley recapitalized the company in 1854 under the same name and began a program of construction and acquisition. The most important takeover was carried out by Sibley when he negotiated the purchase of the Morse patent rights for the Midwest for $50,000 from Jeptha H. Wade and John J. Speed, without the knowledge of Ezra Cornell, their partner in the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company (EMTC). With this acquisition Sibley proceeded to switch to the superior Morse system. He also hired Wade, a very capable manager, who became his protege and later his successor. After a bitter struggle Morse and Wade obtained the EMTC from Cornell in 1855, thus assuring dominance by the NYMVPTC in the Midwest. In 1856 the company name was changed to the "Western Union Telegraph Company," indicating the union of the Western lines into one compact system. In December, 1857, the Company paid stockholders their first dividend.
Between 1857 and 1861 similar consolidations of telegraph companies took place in other areas of the country so that most of the telegraph interests of the United States had merged into six systems. These were the American Telegraph Company (covering the Atlantic and some Gulf states), The Western Union Telegraph Company (covering states North of the Ohio River and parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota), the New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company (covering New York State), the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company (covering Pennsylvania), the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company (covering sections of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois), and the New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company (covering the southern Mississippi Valley and the Southwest). All these companies worked together in a mutually friendly alliance, and other small companies cooperated with the six systems, particularly some on the West Coast.
By the time of the Civil War, there was a strong commercial incentive to construct a telegraph line across the western plains to link the two coasts of America. Many companies, however, believed the line would be impossible to build and maintain.
In 1860 Congress passed, and President James Buchanan signed, the Pacific Telegraph Act, which authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to seek bids for a project to construct a transcontinental line. When two bidders dropped out, Hiram Sibley, representing Western Union, was the only bidder left. By default Sibley won the contract. The Pacific Telegraph Company was organized for the purpose of building the eastern section of the line. Sibley sent Wade to California, where he consolidated the small local companies into the California State Telegraph Company. This entity then organized the Overland Telegraph Company, which handled construction eastward from Carson City, Nevada, joining the existing California lines, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Sibley's Pacific Telegraph Company built westward from Omaha, Nebraska. Sibley put most of his resources into the venture. The line was completed in October, 1861. Both companies were soon merged into Western Union. This accomplishment made Hiram Sibley leader of the telegraph industry.
Further consolidations took place over the next several years. Many companies merged into the American Telegraph Company. With the expiration of the Morse patents, several organizations were combined in 1864 under the name of "The U.S. Telegraph Company." In 1866 the final consolidation took place, with Western Union exchanging stock for the stock of the other two organizations. The general office of Western Union moved at this time from Rochester to 145 Broadway, New York City. In 1875 the main office moved to 195 Broadway, where it remained until 1930 when it relocated to 60 Hudson Street.
In 1873 Western Union purchased a majority of shares in the International Ocean Telegraph Company. This was an important move because it marked Western Union's entry into the foreign telegraph market. Having previously worked with foreign companies, Western Union now began competing for overseas business.
In the late 1870s Western Union, led by William H. Vanderbilt, attempted to wrest control of the major telephone patents, and the new telephone industry, away from the Bell Telephone Company. But due to new Bell leadership and a subsequent hostile takeover attempt of Western Union by Jay Gould, Western Union discontinued its fight and Bell Telephone prevailed.
Despite these corporate calisthenics, Western Union remained in the public eye. The sight of a uniformed Western Union messenger boy was familiar in small towns and big cities all over the country for many years. Some of Western Union's top officials in fact began their careers as messenger boys.
Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century the telegraph became one of the most important factors in the development of social and commercial life of America. In spite of improvements to the telegraph, however, two new inventions--the telephone (nineteenth century) and the radio (twentieth century)--eventually replaced the telegraph as the leaders of the communication revolution for most Americans.
At the turn of the century, Bell abandoned its struggles to maintain a monopoly through patent suits, and entered into direct competition with the many independent telephone companies. Around this time, the company adopted its new name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).
In 1908 AT&T gained control of Western Union. This proved beneficial to Western Union, because the companies were able to share lines when needed, and it became possible to order telegrams by telephone. However, it was only possible to order Western Union telegrams, and this hurt the business of Western Union's main competitor, the Postal Telegraph Company. In 1913, however, as part of a move to prevent the government from invoking antitrust laws, AT&T completely separated itself from Western Union.
Western Union continued to prosper and it received commendations from the U.S. armed forces for service during both world wars. In 1945 Western Union finally merged with its longtime rival, the Postal Telegraph Company. As part of that merger, Western Union agreed to separate domestic and foreign business. In 1963 Western Union International Incorporated, a private company completely separate from the Western Union Telegraph Company, was formed and an agreement with the Postal Telegraph Company was completed. In 1994, Western Union Financial Services, Inc. was acquired by First Financial Management Corporation. In 1995, First Financial Management Corporation merged with First Data Corporation making Western Union a First Data subsidiary.
Many technological advancements followed the telegraph's development. The following are among the more important:
The first advancement of the telegraph occurred around 1850 when operators realized that the clicks of the recording instrument portrayed a sound pattern, understandable by the operators as dots and dashes. This allowed the operator to hear the message by ear and simultaneously write it down. This ability transformed the telegraph into a versatile and speedy system.
Duplex Telegraphy, 1871-72, was invented by the president of the Franklin Telegraph Company. Unable to sell his invention to his own company, he found a willing buyer in Western Union. Utilizing this invention, two messages were sent over the wire simultaneously, one in each direction.
As business blossomed and demand surged, new devices appeared. Thomas Edison's Quadruplex allowed four messages to be sent over the same wire simultaneously, two in one direction and two in the other.
An English automatic signaling arrangement, Wheatstone's Automatic Telegraph, 1883, allowed larger numbers of words to be transmitted over a wire at once. It could only be used advantageously, however, on circuits where there was a heavy volume of business.
Buckingham's Machine Telegraph was an improvement on the House system. It printed received messages in plain Roman letters quickly and legibly on a message blank, ready for delivery.
Vibroplex, c. 1890, a semi-automatic key sometimes called a "bug key," made the dots automatically. This relieved the operator of much physical strain.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Additional moving image about Western Union Telegraph Company can be found in the Industry on Parade Collection (AC0507). This includes Cable to Cuba! by Bell Laboratory, AT & T, featuring the cable ship, the C.S. Lord Kelvin, and Communications Centennial! by the Western Union Company.
Materials at Other Organizations
Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
Western Union records (Western Union Right of Way and Other Agreements, 1848-1990, bulk: 1910-1989 and the Western Union Locality Files, 1892-1995, bulk: 1910-1989) form part of the MCI Communications Corporation Records, 1849-1999. See accession 2225.
First Data Corporation, Greenwood Village, Colorado.
Records of First Data Corporation and its predecessors, including Western Union, First Financial Management Corporation (Atlanta) and First Data Resources (Omaha). Western Union collection supports research of telegraphy and related technologies, and includes company records, annual reports, photographs, print and broadcast advertising, telegraph equipment, and messenger uniforms.
Smithsonian Institution Archives
Western Union Telegraph Expedition, 1865-1867
This collection includes correspondence, mostly to Spencer F. Baird, from members of the Scientific Corps of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, including Kennicott, Dall, Bannister, and Elliott; copies of reports submitted to divisional chiefs from expedition staff members; newspaper clippings concerning the expedition; copies of notes on natural history taken by Robert Kennicott; and a journal containing meteorological data recorded by Henry M. Bannister from March to August, 1866.
Separated Materials:
Artifacts (apparatus and equipment) were donated to the Division of Information Technology and Society, now known as the Division of Work & Industry, National Museum of American History.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Western Union in September of 1971.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but Series 11 and films are stored off-site. Special arrangements must be made to view some of the audiovisual materials. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The Zabriskie Gallery records measure 110.5 linear feet and date from 1905 to 2011. The records document the history of the Zabriskie Gallery through leases, permits, floor plans, and other administrative files; guestbooks; appointment books, notebooks, and other desk diaries; correspondence from New York and Paris galleries, museums, clients, and other correspondence; appraisals, inventories, consigments, and other registrar files; artist files consisting of resumes, correspondence, exhibition material, and photographs of artwork; institution files consisting of correspondence, consignments,and artwork inquiries with museums, galleries, and corporations; exhibition files consisting of loan agreements, press releases, and correspondence related to exhibitions shown at the gallery; invoices, price lists, and other financial records; clippings, press packets, newsletters, and other printed material; photographs, slides, and transparencies of exhibitions and artists works; and correspondence, photographs, awards, and other personal records of Virginia Zabriskie.
Scope and Contents:
The Zabriskie Gallery records measure 110.5 linear feet and date from 1905 to 2011. The records document the history of the Zabriskie Gallery through leases, permits, floor plans, and other administrative files; guestbooks; appointment books, notebooks, and other desk diaries; correspondence from New York and Paris galleries, museums, clients, and other correspondence; appraisals, inventories, consigments, and other registrar files; artist files consisting of resumes, correspondence, exhibition material, and photographs of artwork; institution files consisting of correspondence, consignments,and artwork inquiries with museums, galleries, and corporations; exhibition files consisting of loan agreements, press releases, and correspondence related to exhibitions shown at the gallery; invoices, price lists, and other financial records; clippings, press packets, newsletters, and other printed material; photographs, slides, and transparencies of exhibitions and artists works; and correspondence, photographs, awards, and other personal records of Virginia Zabriskie.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twelve series.
Series 1: Administrative Files, 1969-2010 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 2: Guestbooks, 1954-1995 (1.3 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 3: Desk Diaries, 1968-1997 (3.4 linear feet; Boxes 3-7)
Series 4: Correspondence, 1958-2010 (7.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-14)
Series 5: Registrar Files, 1970-2010 (10.0 linear feet; Boxes 14-22, 110-111, OV 112)
Series 6: Artist Files, 1905-2010 (66.7 linear feet; Boxes 22-87, OV 113-114)
Series 7: Institution Files, 1951-2009 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 88-93)
Series 8: Exhibition Files, 1955-2009 (6.3 linear feet; Boxes 93-99)
Series 9: Financial Records, 1960-2011 (3.7 linear feet; Boxes 99-103)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1948-2010 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 103-104)
Series 11: Photographic Material, 1950-2006 (5.6 linear feet; Boxes 103-108, OV 112)
Series 12: Virginia Zabriskie Personal Records, 1943-2008 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 108-109)
Biographical / Historical:
Zabriskie Gallery was founded by Virignia Zabriskie in 1954 when she purchased the Korman Gallery from Marvin Korman. The gallery featured works from artists such as Robert De Niro Sr., Lester Johnson, Mary Frank, and Pat Adams. Some of the more notable exhibitions included "Surrealism 1936 — Objects, Photographs, Collages and Documents" (1986), "Surrealism and the Book" (1991), and "André Masson in America" (1996). In 1977, Zabriskie opened Galerie Zabriskie in Paris to primarily show photography as there was only one gallery at the time doing so in Paris. Zabriskie closed the Galerie Zabriskie in 1998, but continued to operate the Zabriskie Gallery in New York unitl it closed in 2010.
Virginia Zabriskie (1927-2019) was an American art dealer who worked primarily in New York City and Paris. Zabriskie completed her studies in art history at New York University's Institute of Fine Art. Zabriskie became one of the youngest art dealers in New York in 1954 when she purchased the Korman Gallery. Zabriskie was also a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of America.
Related Materials:
Also included in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Virginia Zabriskie conducted by Paul Cummings, May 28-June 6, 1975.
Provenance:
The Zabriskie Gallery records were donated to the Archives of American Art in seven installments by Virginia Zabriskie between 1992-2011.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Zabriskie Gallery Records, 1905-2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
The records of the Fendrick Gallery measure 106.4 linear feet and 0.008 GB and span the years 1952 to 2001. The bulk of the collection is comprised of artist's files that document the gallery's relations with and representation of over 300 contemporary artists and sculptors, including Robert Arneson, William Bailey, Daniel Brush, Wendell Castle, Robert Cottingham, James Drake, John Dreyfuss, Walter Dusenbury, Roger Essley, Helen Frankenthaler , Sam Gilliam, Jasper Johns, Raymond Kaskey, Claude and Francois Lalanne, Albert Paley, Joseph Raffael, Carol Summer, and numerous other artists. Also found are subject, exhibition, commission, administrative, and financial files, as well as files documenting the gallery's relationship with other museums and galleries.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the Fendrick Gallery measure 106.4 linear feet and 0.008 GB and span the years 1952 to 2001. The bulk of the collection is comprised of artist's files that document the gallery's relationships with and representation of over 300 contemporary artists, including Robert Arneson, William Bailey, Daniel Brush, Wendell Castle, Robert Cottingham, James Drake, John Dreyfuss, Walter Dusenbury, Roger Essley, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Jasper Johns, Raymond Kaskey, Claude and Francois Lalanne, Albert Paley, Joseph Raffael, Carol Summer, and numerous other artists. Also found are subject, exhibition, commission, administrative, and financial files, as well as files documenting the gallery's relationship with other museums and galleries.
Series 1, Artist's Files, measures almost 42 linear feet and dates from 1962-2001. Found here are files documenting the gallery's relationship with over 300 contemporary artists. Files typically contain correspondence, sales receipts, printed materials, exhibition catalogs and announcements, commission information, photographs, slides, and other materials.
Series 2, Albert Paley, 1970-2001, and undated, provides detailed documentation (14.5 linear feet) of the Fendrick gallery's representation of prominent American metal sculptor Albert Paley. The gallery represented Paley from the early 1980s through the early 1990s and devoted a great deal of its resources promoting Paley's work through exhibitions and commissioned sales. Correspondence between the Fendrick Galleries and Paley Studios is found in this series, along with publicity materials, commission proposals and sketches, exhibition materials, and audio-visual and photographic documentation of Paley's work. Researchers should also consult Series 3 for additional documentation of Paley's commissioned projects.
Series 3, Commissioned Works and Projects, 1972-2000, and undated, documents the variety of commissions and special projects the gallery arranged and managed on behalf of its represented artists. Because privately commissioned work and government-sponsored public art projects represented a significant source of revenue for the Fendrick galleries, the gallery devoted a substantial amount of time and resources towards securing these projects. These files contain applications, proposals, sketches, correspondence, photographs and other material arranged by name of project.
Series 4, Exhibition Files, 1961, 1970-1996, and undated, houses files relating to exhibitions organized by Fendrick Gallery. Found here are exhibition announcements, invitations, and catalogs; specific named exhibition files; and files concerning special projects or exhibitions, often jointly curated with other galleries or institutions. The Fendrick gallery was also actively involved in various governmental programs, such as Art in the Embassies Program, and organized traveling exhibits or loaned artwork to them.
The gallery's relationships with other galleries, museums, institutions, and art organizations is documented in Series 5, Museums and Galleries Files, 1952-2000, and undated. Many of the files concern loans, exhibition venues, and joint exhibitions or projects.
Series 6, Subject Files, 1952, 1960-2001, and undated contain numerous files arranged by subject heading. Here, researchers will find information collected and maintained by the gallery on various art medium, artists of interest, exhibition catalogs from museums and other galleries, information about small and fine art presses. Of particular interest are several folders entitled "Fine Art Printers & Publishers." Barbara Fendrick's early years in the art business centered upon exhibiting, promoting, and selling prints produced by young, emerging American artists. The information found here documents her growing personal relationships with some of the most prominent artists and printmakers of this era.
Records documenting administrative, business, operating, and financial affairs are arranged in Series 7, Administrative and Financial Files, 1960-2001, and undated. Found here are records of both the Barbara Fendrick Gallery (New York) and the Fendrick Gallery (Washington, D.C.), as well as files that document Barbara Fendrick's role as art consultant, appraiser, lecturer, exhibition juror, and guest curator. Found are numerous inventory cards, insurance records, consignment files, general correspondence, lists, loan files, notebooks, real estate files, card files on artists and clients, and history files. Of particular interest are the Day Books/Dailies maintained by the New York gallery staff consisting of entries and notes regarding prospective clients and their interests. The Telephone Log Books contain details of telephone conversations with artists, clients, dealers, and other art professionals. Series 7 also houses the financial records of both galleries, including invoices, financial statements, expenses, accounts, and tax records.
Arrangement:
The Fendrick Gallery records were processed to the series, subseries, and folder level. The collection is arranged into seven series. Items within folders, for the most part, were not fully sorted or preserved. When possible, materials were generally arranged at least by year. Within Series 1, Artists' Files, each set of folders for a particular artist are only given span dates. Due to the amount and complexity of material compiled on the artist Albert Paley, his files are arranged into a separate series of their own.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists Files, 1962-2001, undated (Box 1-42, OV 108-110; 41.5 linear ft.)
Series 2: Albert Paley, 1970-2001, undated (Box 42-54; Box 107, OV 111-113, 117-118, FC 119; 14.6 linear ft., ER01; 0.001 GB)
Series 3: Commissioned Works and Projects, 1972- 2000, undated (Box 54-57; 3.5 linear ft.)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1961, 1970-1996, undated (Box 58-63; 5.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Museums and Galleries Files, 1952-200, undated (Box 64-73; 9.25 linear feet)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1952, 1960-2001, undated (Box 73-88, OV 115-116, FC 120; 15.6 linear ft.)
Series 7: Administrative and Financial Files, undated (Box 88-106; OV, ER02-ER03; 0.008 GB)
Historical Note:
The Fendrick Gallery was established in 1960 as a "by appointment only" gallery out of Barbara Fendrick's Washington, D.C., area home. Initially the gallery promoted contemporary American and European prints by emerging artists and also commissioned print editions by nationally-known artists. During the mid 1960s, the Fendrick Gallery also coordinated and produced art exhibitions on a contract basis for the United States Information Agency. The gallery was responsible for organizing the first large American art exhibition at the Department of State and the Federal Reserve.
In May, 1970 the Fendrick Gallery moved into a three-story townhouse in Georgetown and began presenting regular exhibitions open to the public. The gallery offered many prominent American artists, such as Robert Arneson, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, and Robert Rauschenberg their first solo shows in the nation's capital. The Fendrick Gallery also represented many nationally known sculptors, such as John Dreyfuss, Walter Dusenbery, Raymond Kaskey, and Albert Paley.
Over the years, Fendrick Gallery promoted many emerging artists who were breaking down the barriers between art and craft in the areas of clay, furniture, metal, and book arts. The gallery held the first major show of contemporary ceramics on the East Coast, with the 1976 exhibition, Clay USA. The gallery also received critical acclaim for its exhibitions in the area of "book arts" and held four shows featuring the works of prominent American and international book artists.
In 1987 and 1988, the gallery expanded and opened the Barbara Fendrick Gallery in the Soho section of New York City. The New York location operated as both a gallery space and storage area and was often referred to as "The Warehouse." Both the Fendrick Gallery and the Barbara Fendrick Gallery closed in the summer of 1991, but Barbara Fendrick continues to work as an art consultant, appraiser, exhibition juror, lecturer, and guest curator.
Provenance:
The records of the Fendrick Gallery were donated to the Archives of American Art by Barbara Fendrick in 1999, with an addition to the records in 2001.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Personal papers consist of biographical materials and personal and family files, including "memorabilia" files compiled by Johnson. Correspondence is a mix of personal, business, and professional correspondence. Significant correspondents include David Saunders (who painted a portrait of Johnson), Claes Oldenburg, Jack Tworkov, Robert Venturi, the American Scandinavian Foundation. A folder of correspondence compiled for the Archives includes letters from Alfred Stieglitz, Wendell Wilkie, Carl Milles, Jim Dine, and Alexander Archipenko.
Extensive and comprehensive writing and research project files include articles, lectures, presentations, manuscripts, notes and notebooks, including her class notebooks from courses she attended in Paris in 1935, and additional notes and notebooks on a wide variety of subjects. The numerous articles, lectures, papers, and drafts were written primarily by Johnson for the College Art Association, the Allen Memorial Art Museum bulletin, and numerous additional publications and presentations; but there are also writings by others included in the research files. Major writing projects and related research files cover Scandinavian art, the Ossabaw Island artist's colony, Cezanne, Eva Hesse, John Frederick Kensett, Claes Oldenburg, Picasso, David Saunders, Athena Tacha, Pop Art, and many other topics. Johnson's research files, manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs for major exhibitions, including one on Eva Hesse (1982) and for her published books including American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (1982), Claes Oldenburg (1971), Fragments Recalled at 80: The Art Memoirs of Ellen H. Johnson (1993), and Modern Art and Object (1976) are arranged with the writing project files. Johnson's bibliographic index cards are found here as well.
The collection contains extensive teaching files for courses taught by Johnson at Oberlin and as a visiting professor at other institutions; professional and curatorial files reflecting her curatorial career at Allen Memorial Art Museum, as a consultant, jury member, and continuing education courses she later attended, including the Baldwin Lecture Series; and 18 linear feet of artist's files assembled by Johnson.
Arrangement:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers are arranged into seven series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Personal Papers, circa 1905-2009 (5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 56-59)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1927-2009 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 3-7, 60)
Series 3: Writing and Research Projects, 1872, 1932-1994 (15.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-20, 56, 61-62)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1930-1993 (5 linear feet; Boxes 21-25, 62)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1928-1989 (6 linear feet; Boxes 26-31, 62)
Series 6: Professional and Curatorial Files, 1936-1991 (6 linear feet; Boxes 32-37, 56)
Series 7: Artists Files, 1935-1992 (18.3 linear feet; Boxes 37-55, 62)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, 1956-1991 (0.2 linear feet; Box 63)
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Hulda Johnson (1910-1992) was an art historian, critic, and professor who worked and taught at Oberlin College in Ohio for most of her career.
Ellen Hulda Johnson was born in 1910 in Warren, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in art history at Oberlin in 1933 and 1935. She worked briefly at the Toledo Museum of Art before returning to Oberlin as the art librarian. In 1940 she started Oberlin's art rental program, the first of its kind in the country. She was appointed to the faculty in 1948 and taught nineteenth and twentieth century art, American art from colonial times to the present, contemporary art, and Scandinavian art. She was a member of the Allen Memorial Art Museum's acquisition committee and was appointed honorary curator of modern art in 1973. She remained at Oberlin her entire career, retiring from teaching in 1977.
Johnson was a scholar of Cézanne, Claes Oldenburg, Eva Hesse, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, John F. Kensett and other modern masters, as well as Scandinavian art. In 1962 she wrote the first important article on Claes Oldenburg and, in 1970, assisted curator Athena Tacha commission his first permanent large sculpture (3-Way Plug) for the grounds of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. She was the first to show the black-striped paintings that established Frank Stella's reputation. Her efforts in promoting acquisitions of young contemporary artists helped make the Allen Memorial Art Museum a leading institution in contemporary art. Her Oberlin lectures on modern art became so popular that they had to be held in the college's largest auditorium and influenced generations of students, many of whom went on to signficant positions in the field. A new wing of the museum designed by Robert Venturi opened in 1977 and was named in honor of Johnson.
Johnson was the author of numerous articles, books, and exhibition catalogs including Cezanne (Penquin, 1967); Claes Oldenburg (Penquin, 1971); American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (Harper and Row, 1982); and Modern Art and the Object (Thames and Hudson, 1976).
In 1968, Johnson purchased the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Weltzheimer house in Oberlin, and spent a considerable part of her time and money restoring the building where she lived the rest of her life. She bequethed the house and her significant art collection to Oberlin upon her death in 1992.
Related Materials:
Papers of Ellen H. Johnson, 1933-1992, are also located at Oberlin College Archives.
Separated Materials:
Shortly after aquisition, the Archives transferred Ellen Hulda Johnson's vertical file (16 linear feet) of clippings, press releases, and exhibition announcements to the library of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.
Provenance:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers were donated in 1994, 1998, 2019 and 2021 by the estate of Ellen Hulda Johnson via exectutor Athena Tacha.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington D.C. Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Ellen Hulda Johnson papers, 1872-2018, bulk 1921-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
F.C. Brown was a physicist and inventor who created and supervised the development of education exhibits, most notably as organizing director of the New York Museum of Science and Industry (part of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts), 1926-1931. He was also curator of physics exhibits at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, 1932-1937. Much of Brown's scientific research focused on the element selenium. He invented the phonopticon, an improvement on the optophone (invented by Fournier d'Albe, 1912). Material focuses on Dr. Brown's professional life: correspondence, photographs, photo albums, scrapbooks, and ephemera from the positions he held and research he conducted. Very little personal information is included.
Scope and Contents:
The material in the F. C. Brown Papers focuses primarily on Dr. Brown's professional life and includes correspondence, photographs, photo albums, scrapbooks and ephemera. Very little personal information is included. The collection is arranged into ten series.
Series 1, Biographical/General, 1905-1940, contains material which relates to Dr. Brown's personal life and research. Scientific publications, which do not relate directly to the professional positions he held, can be found here. Also included are some personal financial records and two photographic portraits of Dr. Brown.
Series 2, Correspondence, 1902-1964, undated, is arranged chronologically and pertains directly to Dr. Brown's career.
Series 3, Inventions, 1904-1942, documents Dr. Brown's inventions and include invention notebooks, loose notes, patent documents, correspondence, and an article announcing the invention of the phonopticon.
Series 4, U. S. Army Ordnance Department, 1918-1919, contains materials from Dr. Brown's tenure at the U. S. Army Ordnance Department. It includes a panoramic photograph and various official reports.
Series 5, U. S. Bureau of Standards, 1917-1926, contains assorted papers from the U. S. Bureau of Standards which date from 1917 to 1922, and also a few photographs, including a panoramic portrait of Bureau personnel in 1920.
Series 6, Museum Work, 1927-1940, consists of materials primarily dealing with Dr. Brown's work in the New York Museum of Science and Industry (part of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts) and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Of note is material relating to the dedication ceremony at which the airplane Bremen was given to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts and two scrapbooks which contain clippings, brochures, and photos showcasing developments and events in science, industry and the Museums of the Peaceful Arts.
Series 7, Photographs: Museums of the Peaceful Arts, Museum of Science and Industry, New York City, undated, is comprised of photographs from the Museums of the Peaceful Arts including such subjects as events, exhibits, displays, models, objects, machines, devices, and people. The majority of the photographs are undated.
Series 8, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1932-1937, includes two photo albums and a scrapbook which deal with the planning of the AAAS annual science exhibitions.
Series 9, Photographs: Other Subjects, 1907-1939, is comprised of photographs covering subjects such as exhibits, displays, objects, and people.
Series 10, Miscellaneous, 1910-circa 1945, includes invitations, programs, brochures, miscellaneous publications and other writings, notes and calculations, and papers from a series of radio broadcasts on science. There is also a 1939 textbook, Experimental Heat, Sound and Light, with accompanying notes and annotations.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into ten series.
Series 1, Biographical/General, 1905-1940
Series 2, Correspondence, 1902-1964 and undated
Series 3, Inventions, 1904-1942
Subseries 1, Notebook, 1904
Subseries 2, Invention Notebooks, 1910-1942
Series 4, U.S. Army Ordnance Department, 1918-1921
Series 7, Photographs: Museums of the Peaceful Arts, Museum of Science and Industry, New York City, undated
Subseries 1, Events, Exhibits and Displays, undated
Subseries 2, Models, Objects, Machines and Devices, undated
Subseries 3, People with Objects, undated
Subseries 4, People, undated
Subseries 5, Photos of Other Materials, undated
Series 8, American Association for the Advancement of Science (A.A.A.S.), 1932-1937
Series 9, Photographs: other subjects, 1907-1939
Subseries 1, Exhibits, Displays and Objects, 1931-1939, undated
Subseries 2, People, 1907-1928, undated
Subseries 3, Miscellaneous, circa 1918-1920, undated
Series 10, Miscellaneous, 1910-circa 1945
Biographical / Historical:
Brown was a physicist and inventor who created and supervised the development of education exhibits, most notably as organizing director of the New York Museum of Science and Industry (part of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts), 1926-1931. He was also curator of physics exhibits at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, 1932-1937. Much of Brown's scientific research focused on the element selenium. He invented the phonopticon, an improvement on the optophone (invented by Fournier d'Albe, 1912).
Provenance:
This collection was donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History by Dr. Brown's son-in-law, Richard D. Olson, August 1999.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Harold Lyons was a physicist whose primary interest was in atomic frequency standards and atomic clocks. The collection documents Lyons and his work with atomic clocks. The collection includes his research as manifested in published papers, presentations, reports, correspondence, laboratory notes, photographs and diagrams.
Scope and Contents:
The Harold Lyons Papers, 1935-1991, show his professional interests, especially his research from the 1950s, as manifested in published papers, presentations, reports, correspondence, laboratory results, and photographs. The bulk of the collection consists of papers and presentations of Lyons and others in the atomic physics field. Most of Lyons's work and the materials he collected address different aspects of microwave frequency.
Formats represented in the collection include published articles, typewritten and handwritten manuscripts, typewritten and handwritten personal correspondence, memorandums, photographs, diagrams, laboratory results, pamphlets, and newspaper clippings. The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1, Biographical Information, 1955-1965; 1973, contains copies of Lyons's curriculum vitae (circa 1955, 1962, and 1971) and his entries in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in The West. This series also has two folders with materials relating to two honors he received, the Franklin Institute Certificate of Merit, in 1958, and the U.S. Department of Commerce's 25th Commemorative Award in 1973.
Series 2, Papers and Presentations, 1947-1962; 1973-1974, contains the journal articles and papers authored by Lyons and the conference and special presentations he gave during his career, most of which address research for aspects of the atomic clock. Included are papers he authored published in the Journal of Applied Physics, American Scholar, Scientific American, and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and presentations given at the National Bureau of Standards for the anniversary of the atomic clock.
Series 3, Correspondence, 1949-1991, contains general correspondence for the years 1949-1966, 1978, 1987, and 1991, as well as correspondence with the following individuals: Dirk Brouwer, Paul Forman, Polykarp Kusch, Koichi Shimoda, Wilbert F. Snyder, Charles H. Townes, and Jerrold R. Zacharias. The bulk of this series is incoming correspondence addressed to Lyons, although he did retain some copies of outgoing correspondence.
Series 4, Research, 1947-1958; 1970-1991, contains laboratory results for deuterated ammonia (via strip chart recordings) and general cesium atomic beam experiments through calibration of magnetic fields, calculation of c-fields in the magnetic chamber, and atomic beam measurements. It also contains brief information on other research interests, such as the International Scientific Radio Union, and scattered promotional materials for natural health and electrical products. In addition, this series contains a copy of the patent granted to Lyons and Benjamin F. Husten in 1955 for the atomic clock and photographs and diagrams relating to Lyons's work on the atomic clock. Included are black and white photographs of Lyons and his colleagues with views of the clock as well as diagrams and charts included in published and unpublished work and presentations. Most of the photographs and diagrams are undated and unlabeled.
Series 5, Collected Background Research Materials, 1935-1982, contains papers and presentation materials focused on atomic physics, including papers published in journals, memoranda, technical reports, conference programs, and conference proceedings. One folder in this series has materials relating to the promotion of the atomic clock through pamphlets, speeches, papers, and one oversize item of reproduced newspaper clippings. A folder relating to a university course of lectures, most likely authored by Polykarp Kusch of Columbia University, on molecular beams is also included in this series. In addition, this series contains copies of two patents, one granted to Friedrich H. Reder in 1960 for molecular resonance devices, and the other, an Australian patent, applied for in 1958, for an invention dealing with a frequency selective method and system.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into five series.
Series 1, Biographical Information, 1955-1965; 1973
Series 2, Papers and Presentations, 1947-1962; 1973-1974
Subseries 2, Other Research Interests, 1947-1957; 1970-1991
Subseries 3, Photographs and Diagrams, 1957; undated
Series 5, Collected Background Research Materials, 1935-1982
Biographical / Historical:
Harold Lyons was born February 16, 1913 in Buffalo, New York, and attended the University of Buffalo, graduating summa cum laude with a B.S. in Physics in 1933. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from the University of Michigan in 1939, he worked at the Naval Research Laboratories for two years and then joined the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in 1941. In 1944, he was appointed chief of the Microwave Standards Section of an Interservice Radio Propagation Laboratory (IRPL) established at the NBS during World War II. He continued in that position after the war when the IRPL, in 1946, was reconstituted as the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory (CRPL).
Lyons's work on microwave frequency standards led directly to his interest in atomic frequency standards and atomic clocks. On his initiative a substantial program of research and development was pursued in the Microwave Standards Section from 1948-1951. There under his direction the first operative atomic clock, based on the absorption of microwaves of ammonia, was constructed in 1948 and announced in early 1949.
Lyons remained with the CRPL after it was moved to Boulder, Colorado, in 1954, but left a year later to work in Hughes Aircraft Company's Culver City, California, research labs. Here he continued his atomic physics research, particularly applications for the atomic clock, including satellite technology, and expanding to development work in lasers. He continued his work on lasers at Electro-Optical Systems Quantum Physics Division from 1960-1962. In the late 1960s and during the 1970s, he was an independent physics consultant and conducted research through an association with the University of California, Los Angeles.
Harold Lyons died March 23, 1998 in Los Angeles, California.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
National Company (NATCO) Atomic Clocks Records, 1955-1968 (AC0547), contains related archival materials, principally on the development of the first commercial atomic clock, the Atomichron.
Materials in the National Museum of American History
The Division of Work and Industry, formerly the Division of Information, Technology and Communication, holds the first operative atomic clock, constructed under Lyons's direction at the National Bureau of Standards in 1948.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Harold Lyons's daughter, Sherrie L. Lyons, in January, 2000.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning intellectual property rights. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The Myron Bement Smith collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. It contains substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime. The Islamic Archives was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture.
Scope and Contents:
The Myron Bement Smith Collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. The papers include some biographic material about Myron but little about his wife. Information on his academic and professional experience is sketchy and his diaries and appointment books often contain only sporadic entries. The papers contain substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Correspondence comprises the largest and most potentially useful part of the papers. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester, NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime.
The Islamic Archives, formally entitled The Archive for Islamic Culture and Art, was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Most of the latter consists of photographs and slides. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture. The core collection of the Archives consists of Smith's original photographs and architectural sketches of Iranian Islamic monuments made during his field research in the 1930s. He meticulously photographed the interior and exterior of monuments, including their decorative detail. Some of the photographic materials subsequently loaned, purchased, or donated to the Archives may enable scholars to document sites over time but in many cases the materials are poorly preserved or reproduced. A notable exception to this is the glassplate negatives and prints of 19th century Iranian photographer Antoin Sevruguin.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 major series with further subseries. A third series inventories the outsized and miscellaneous materials.
Series 1: Papers
Subseries 1.1: Biographic Materials
Subseries 1.2: Professional Experience
Subseries 1.3: Notebooks, Journals and Appointment Books
Subseries 1.4: Correspondence
Subseries 1.5: Published and Unpublished Materials
Subseries 1.6: Italy Research 1925, 1927-1928
Subseries 1.7: Iran Research 1933-1937
Subseries 1.8: Katharine Dennis Smith Papers and Correspondence
Series 2: The Islamic Archives
Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information
Subseries 2.2: Resource Materials Iran
Subseries 2.3: Resource Materials Other Islamic World and General
Subseries 2.4: Myron Bement Smith Architectural Sketches, Plans and Notes, Iran, 1933-1937
Subseries 2.5: Myron Bement Smith Iran Photographs, Notebooks and Negative Registers
Subseries 2.6: Country Photograph File
Subseries 2.7: Lantern Slide Collection
Subseries 2.8: Myron Bement Smith 35 mm Color Slides
Subseries 2.9: Country 35 mm Color Slide File
Subseries 2.10: Myron Bement Smith Negatives
Subseries 2.11: Country Photograph Negatives
Subseries 2.12: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs
Series 3: Outsize and Miscellaneous Items
Subseries 3.1: Map Case Drawers
Subseries 3.2: Rolled Items
Subseries 3.3 Items in Freezer
Subseries 3.4 Smithsonian Copy Negatives
Biographical Note:
Myron Bement Smith was born in Newark Valley, New York in 1897 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He died in Washington D.C. in 1970. He showed an early interest in drawing, and after graduation from high school, he worked as a draftsman for a Rochester architect. He served in the US Army Medical Corps in France during World War I and on return again worked as an architectural draftsman. He studied at Yale University from 1922 to 1926, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. During summer vacations, he worked as draftsman or designer for architectural firms in New York City. After graduation, he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant and spent two years in Italy doing research on northern Italian brick and stone work. He used photography as an tool for his research and published several well-illustrated articles. On return he joined an architectural firm in Philadelphia and in 1931 became a registered architect in New York. He enrolled in Harvard University graduate school in 1929 pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree.
In April 1930, Smith was appointed Secretary of the newly created American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology founded by Arthur Upham Pope and located in New York City. He had no prior academic or work experience in Islamic art or architecture, and his job entailed designing publications, arranging lectures, organizing exhibitions and fund raising. That summer he arranged an independent study course at Harvard University on Persian art and subsequently studied Persian language at Columbia University and attended graduate courses at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His work and academic credentials enabled him to compete successfully for a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1933 to study Iranian Islamic architecture.
Accompanied by his new bride Katharine Dennis, Smith left for Iran in 1933. They suffered a horrendous motor vehicle accident in Iraq en route and required a lengthy recuperation in Lebanon and Cyprus. The Smiths eventually arrived in Isfahan, Iran, where they established their "Expedition House," as Smith called it, in a rented faculty house at Stuart College. Smith's research consisted of meticulous photographic documentation of Islamic monuments and architectural sketches and drawings of many of them. He concentrated on the Isfahan area but also documented monuments elsewhere in Iran. Smith outfitted his station wagon as a combination camper and research vehicle in which he and his staff traveled widely. Katharine sometimes traveled with him but generally she remained in Isfahan managing the household and logistics for the "expedition." The Smiths left Iran in 1937.
Smith published several articles about Iran's Islamic monuments based on his field research and in 1947 completed his PhD thesis for The Johns Hopkins University on the vault in Persian architecture. His professional career from 1938 until his death in 1970 consisted of a series of temporary academic positions, contract work and government or academic sponsored lecture tours and photographic exhibits. He had a long lasting relationship with the Library of Congress where he served as an Honorary Consultant from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1948 to 1970; from 1943 to 1944 he was Chief of the Iranian Section at the Library. Despite his lack of published material, Smith was well-known among academic, government and private citizens who worked, traveled or were otherwise interested Iran and the Islamic world.
Smith developed an extensive network of professional and social contacts that dated from his early student days and increased markedly during his time at the Persian Institute and later in Iran. He kept in touch with them and they touted him to others who were interested in Iran or Islamic art and architecture. This network served him well in realizing his ambition of creating a resource for scholars that relied on photographs to document Islamic architecture. The Islamic Archives began with his own collection of photographs from his Iran research and grew to include all manner of photographic and other materials not only on the Islamic world but also other areas. Creating and managing the Archives became the main focus of Smith's professional life and career. In 1967 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise his PhD thesis as a publishable manuscript but died before he could complete it.
Related Materials:
The Antoin Sevruguin Photgraphs
Ernst Herzfeld Papers
Lionel B. Bier Drawings
Lionel D. Bier and Carol Bier Photographs
Provenance:
Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, transfered from National Anthropological Archives.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
The Myron Bement Smith Collection, FSA A.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith.
National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Electricity and Modern Physics Search this
Extent:
46 Cubic feet (150 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Clippings
Newsletters
Scrapbooks
Notebooks
Motion pictures (visual works)
Photographs
Date:
1884-1965
Scope and Contents:
While the collection is focused rather specifically on the development of television in America, including technical details, legal proceedings, marketing and advertisement, and manufacturing, it is also a rich source for the history of American advertising, work cultures, sales, and entertainment. There is also information about radio, mostly in periodicals collected by Du Mont. Information about Allen Du Mont is largely limited to his professional development and activities, except for a few travel photographs and information about and logbooks from his boat.
Materials date from 1884 to 1965, but the bulk come from the years 1931 1960; mostly scattered periodicals comprise the earlier years.
The collection includes correspondence, photographs, blueprints, films, videotapes, pamphlets, books, periodicals, newspaper and magazine clippings, annual reports, organization charts, stock records, ticker tape, legal documents, patent documents, bills, accountants' reports, meeting minutes, scrapbooks, technical drawings, advertisements, catalogs, and technical manuals. Processing included revising the previous series order, refoldering and reboxing all items, and completely revising the finding aid. Duplicates were weeded out; two copies were retained of any multiple item. Materials in binders were unbound. An example of each binder with the DuMont logo was retained, and the materials once contained therein refer to the appropriate binder in the container list. Plain office binders were discarded.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into 16 series.
Series 1: Personal Files, 1920s-1965
Series 2: Executive Records, 1938-1964
Series 3: Stock Records, 1937-1962
Series 4: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Patents and Legal Proceedings, 1884-1960
Series 5: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Financial Records, 1931-1964
Series 6: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Operations, 1938-1958
Series 7: Radio Technical Planning Board, 1944-1946
Series 8: Federal Communications Commission, 1940-1959 and undated
Series 9: DuMont Laboratories, Marketing and Sales, 1939-1961 and undated
Series 10: Telecommunications for Venezuela, 1952-1957 and undated
Series 11: Du Mont Network, 1944-1952 and undated
Series 12: Du Mont Publications, 1933-1963 and undated
Series 13: Photographs, 1928-1960 and undated
Series 14: Clippings/Scrapbooks, 1933-1962
Series 15: Non-Du Mont Publications, 1892, 1907-1963 and undated
Series 16: Audiovisual Materials, 1948-1955
Series 17: Addenda, 1933-1959
Biographical / Historical:
Allen Balcom Du Mont was born Jan. 29, 1901, in Brooklyn, NY to S. William Henry Beaman and Lillian Felton Balcom Du Mont. He contracted poliomyelitis when he was eleven and was confined to bed for nearly a year. During his illness, he began to amuse himself with a crystal radio set; by year's end, he had built a receiving and transmitting set. He was licensed as a ship's wireless operator when he was fifteen, and took a job a year later as a radio operator on a passenger vessel that ran between New York and Providence, RI. He worked as a radio operator for the next seven years.
Du Mont graduated in 1924 from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, with a degree in electrical engineering. He had already begun his first invention for the Sound Operated Circuit Controller, a device that turns a switch on or off when it hears a sharp sound; he used it to turn off his radio during commercials with a hand clap. Du Mont began working for the Westinghouse Lamp Company (later a division of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation), raising their output of radio tubes from 500 a day to 5,000 an hour in four years. For this, he received the Westinghouse Achievement Award in 1927. He left Westinghouse to become chief engineer at the De Forest Radio Company in 1928; his inventions increased output there to 30,000 radio tubes a day, and he was promoted to vice president in charge of production. In 1929, he received his first patent, for a radio tube mounting device.
He also worked with television at De Forest, using mechanical receivers with a spinning "Nipkow disk" that scanned electrical impulses and gave the effect of a motion picture. The De Forest experimental transmitter, W2XCD, in Passaic, NJ, broadcast television programs in 1930. Du Mont quickly concluded that there was no future in scanning discs; they produced a small, dark picture, and were difficult to build correctly. Others had developed television pictures that were produced by an electronic beam scanning rapidly across a florescent screen at the end of a tube. However, those cathode ray tubes were still imported from Germany, were very expensive, and burned out after only twenty five to thirty hours.
Du Mont left his job at De Forest in 1931 and started a cathode ray manufacturing business in a garage laboratory at his home. He developed a tube that lasted a thousand hours and could be manufactured inexpensively. There was almost no market for his tubes; gross sales income the first year was only $70. However, the tubes were an integral part of the cathode ray oscillograph, an instrument widely used in physics laboratories that measures and records changes in electrical current over time. The business, incorporated in 1935 as DuMont Laboratories, Inc., prospered in the oscillograph market. DuMont Labs moved in 1933 into a series of empty stores, then to a plant in Passaic, NJ, in 1937. Du Mont also acted as consultant to manufacturers with cathode ray tube problems and served as an expert witness in patent litigations.
Du Mont used the money he made from oscillographs to develop television. His innovations in making precise, quickly manufactured, inexpensive, long lasting cathode ray tubes made commercial television possible. In 1938, Du Mont sold a half interest in his company to the Paramount Pictures Corporation to raise capital for broadcasting stations. In 1939, the company became the first to market a television receiver for homes, and was part of a major display at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Television development and sales were cut off by World War II, since DuMont Laboratories converted entirely to wartime production of oscillographs and to radar research. DuMont Laboratories returned to television production in 1946 and was the first company to market a postwar television set. By 1951 the company grossed $75 million a year and had four plants manufacturing television sending and receiving equipment in Passaic, Allwood, East Paterson, and Clifton, NJ. Du Mont had become the television industry's first millionaire. He was chosen in a Forbes magazine poll as one of the twelve foremost business leaders of America that same year, and was once characterized as "one of the very few inventors in the annals of American industry who have made more money from their inventions than anyone else has" (Rice, 36).
Du Mont began an experimental television station, W2XTV, in Passaic, NJ, in 1939. He added WABD (later WNEW TV) in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WDTV (later KDKA) in Pittsburgh, PA. He concentrated on technology and business, leaving entertainment to others in the company. However, the DuMont Network "featured such names as Ernie Kovacs, Morey Amsterdam, Ted Mack, Ernest Borgnine, Jan Murray, and Dennis James. Its long running variety hour, Cavalcade of Stars, showcased not only Jackie Gleason but The Honeymooners, which made its debut as a Cavalcade sketch" (Krampner, 98). The 1950s
superhero Captain Video became famous on the DuMont network, and Bishop Fulton Sheen's inspirational show, "Life is Worth Livinq," won surprisingly high ratings (Watson, 17). Ultimately, America's fourth network failed: in 1955, DuMont Broadcasting separated from Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., becoming the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company and, with the addition of other properties, Metromedia, Inc.
Du Mont testified frequently before the Federal Communications Commission to set technical standards for American television broadcast between 1945 and 1952. In 1946, Du Mont's company was one of several to oppose the Columbia Broadcasting System's petition to the FCC to establish color television standards; Du Mont preferred to wait for further research to develop all electronic color television, rather than the mechanical method CBS favored. He felt that method produced a picture far less than optimal, and would have required persons who did not own color sets to purchase adapters to receive broadcasts being produced in color. Standards were developed by the National Television Standards Committee in 1951 1953; the Federal Communications Commission accepted them in 1953, and regular transmission of color programs began on the major networks, including the DuMont Network, in 1954.
Sales of television receivers from DuMont Laboratories, Inc. peaked in 1954; by the late 1950s, the company was losing money. The Emerson Radio and Phonograph Company purchased the division that produced television sets, phonographs, and high fidelity and stereo equipment in 1958. In 1960 remaining Du Mont interests merged with the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation. Du Mont was president of DuMont Laboratories, Inc., until 1956, when he became chairman of the Board of Directors. His title changed to Chairman and General Manager in 1959. In 1961 he became Senior Technical Advisor, Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation.
Du Mont received many awards for his work, including honorary doctorates from Rennselaer (1944), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1949), Fairleigh Dickinson College (1955), and New York University (1955). He received the Marconi Memorial Medal for Achievement in 1945, and an American Television society award in 1943 for his contributions to the field. In 1949, he received the Horatio Alger Award, "a yearly prize bestowed by the American Schools and Colleges Association on the man whose rise to fortune most nearly parallels the virtuous careers of Ben the Luggage Boy and Tattered Tom" (Rice, 35). He held more than thirty patents
for developments in cathode ray tubes and other television devices. His inventions included the "magic eye tube" once commonly seen on radios and the Duovision, a television that could receive two programs simultaneously. Du Mont was also noted for success in predicted log power boat racing; in his television equipped Hurricane III, he became the national champion of the power cruiser division of the American Power Boat Association in 1953 1955 and 1958. Du Mont died November 15, 1965; his obituary appeared on the front page of the New York Times. He was survived by Ethel Martha Steadman, whom he married in 1926, and their two children, Allen Balcom, Jr., and Yvonne.
Sources
Current Biography 1946, pp. 162 164.
Krampner, Jon. "The Death of the DuMont [sic] Network: A Real TV Whodunit." Emmy Magazine (July August 1990): 96 103.
Obituary, New York Times, 16 November 1965, 1:3.
Rice, Robert. "The Prudent Pioneer." The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 1951.
Watson, Mary Ann. "And they Said 'Uncle Fultie Didn't Have a Prayer . . . "11 Television Quarterly 26, no. 3(1993): 16 21.
Who's Who in America, 1962.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Edward J. Orth Memorial Archives of the New York World's Fair, 1939-1940
Warshaw Collection, Worlds Expositions, New York World's Fair, 1939 (AC0060)
Larry Zim World's Fair Collection (AC0519)
George H. Clark "Radioana" Collection, ca. 1880-1950 (AC0055)
Division of Work and Industry
Related artifacts consist of cathode ray tubes, oscillographs, television receivers (including a Duoscope), and other instruments. See accession #:EM*315206, EM*315208, EM*315209, EM*327728, EM*327735, EM*327742, EM*327743, EM*327745, EM*327749, EM*327751, EM*327756, EM*327758, EM*327759, EM*327760, EM*327763, EM*327770, EM*328155, EM*328178, EM*328182, EM*328193, EM*328198, EM*328200, EM*328209, EM*328212, EM*328224, EM*328231, EM*328247, EM*328253, EM*328258, EM*328264, EM*328269, EM*328271, EM*328277, EM*328280, EM*328282, EM*328283, EM*328286, EM*328299, EM*328305, EM*328306, EM*328315, EM*328316,
EM*328322, EM*328325, EM*328327, EM*328336, EM*328337, EM*328343, EM*328348, EM*328352, EM*328353, EM*328366, EM*328368, ZZ*RSN80323A74, ZZ*RSN80552U05, ZZ*RSN80748U09, ZZ*RSN80748U11, ZZ*RSN80844U09, and ZZ*RSN81576U01.
Library of Congress
Records of the Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc. 1930 1960 (bulk 1945 1960). 56 lin. ft. Consists of nine series: Administrative Files, 1935 1960; General Correspondence, ca. 1930 1960; Interoffice Correspondence, ca. 1935 1960; Financial Records, 1932 1960; Sales and Advertising File, 1936 1960; Production and Engineering File, 1932 1960; Television File, ca. 1935 1960; Hearings File, 1935 1957; and General Miscellany, ca. 1937 1960. National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections number 68 2021; National Inventory of Documentary Sources number 2.1.243.
Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs
John H. Zieger Papers, 1942 1980. 1 box (type not specified). Correspondence, clippings, leaflets, and memoranda, related to Zieger's union activities with Western Electric Employees
Association and Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories. National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections number 91 2872.
Provenance:
Immediate source of acquisition unknown.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Gloves must be worn when handling unprotected photographs and negatives. Special arrangements required to view materials in cold storage. Using cold room materials requires a three hour waiting period. Only reference copies of audiovisual materials may be used. Contact the Archives Center for more information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
National Museum of American History (U.S.) Search this
Extent:
45 Cubic feet (114 boxes, 23 map folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Articles
Color slides
Contracts
Copy prints
Correspondence
Illustrations
Letterheads
Maps
Negatives (photographic)
Newsclippings
Notebooks
Photographs
Picture postcards
Pocket notebooks
Postage stamps
Press releases
Reports
Specifications
Stereographs
Date:
1755-2000
Summary:
The collection consists of a wide range of materials--ephemera, trade literature, correpsondence, photographs, maps, plans, schematics, pamplets, brochures, postcards, calendars--documenting the subject of bridges.
Scope and Contents:
This collection was assembled by the Division of Civil and Mechanical Engineering (now the Division of Work and Industry) curators over the course of several decades. The collection consists of a wide range of materials documenting the subject of bridges broadly in terms of planning, construction, geography, aesthetics, cost, and failures. Well-known bridges such as the Brooklyn Bridge and its bridge builders and engineers is also documented.
The materials consist of photographs, negatives, copy prints, illustrations, correspondence, newsclippings, journal articles, HABS/HAER drawings, engineeeing reports, contracts and specifications for building bridges, blueprints, and notebooks. Throughout the files is curatorial correspondence, principally with curator Robert Vogel and historians of the history of technology, bridge enthusiasts, and civil engineers. There is a mixture of primary, secondary and tertiary materials found throughout the collection.
Some of the materials related to the Brooklyn Bridge are photocopies or copy prints from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Roebling Collection and other archives and libraries. These materials were assembled for the exhibit "Building Brooklyn Bridge--The Engineering and Construction, 1867-1883" staged in 1983 at the National Museum of American History. These materials are filed under the title "Building Brooklyn Bridge."
Many of the photographs and other items are from collections at the National Museum of American History: Llewellyn Nathaniel Edwards, Henry Grattan Tyrrell, Samuel E. Reed Collection, and the T.F. Healy Collection.
Publications vary widely, but some titles include American Contract Journal, American Railroad Journal, Harpers Weekly, Scientific American, Engineers and Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering News-Record, Engineering Record, and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series, then alphabetically.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Horatio Allen Papers, NMAH.AC.1447
American Public Works Association "Top Ten Public Works Projects of the Century--1900-2000" Nominations, NMAH.AC.0983
American Petroleum Institute Photograph and Film Collection, NMAH.AC.0711
Archives Center Business Americana Collection, NMAH.AC.0404
Archives Center Lantern Slide Collection, NMAH.AC.0686
Archives Center Postcard Collection, NMAH.AC.0483
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Records, NMAH.AC.1086
Benjamin Franklin Bridge Photograph Album, NMAH.AC.1029
Berlin Construction Company Records, NMAH.AC.1032
Victor Blenkle Postcard Collection, NMAH.AC.0200
Bollman Truss Bridge Collection, NMAH.AC.1064
Donald M. Burmister Paper, NMAH.AC.1068
Canadian Bridges Photograph Albums, NMAH.AC.1025
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Collection, NMAH.AC.0930
Robert Covington Stereograph Portfolio, NMAH.AC.1201
Cummings Structural Concrete Company Records, NMAH.AC.0218
Arthur d'Arazien Industrial Photographs, NMAH.AC.0314
Victor C. Darnell Bridge Construction Photographs, NMAH.AC.1018
William E. Dean Papers, NMAH.AC.0230
Robert Dearborn Panama Canal Glass negatives, NMAH.AC.1111
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Records, NMAH.AC.1074
U.S. Steel Corporation Photograph Albums, NMAH.AC.1037
Rip Van Winkle Bridge Photographs, NMAH.AC.1027
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Series: Bridges, NMAH.AC.0060
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Series: Railroads, NMAH.AC.0060
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Series 2: Other Collection Divisions, NMAH.AC.0060
Washington, D.C. Bridges Collection, NMAH.AC.1095
Raymond W. Wilson Covered Bridge Collection, NMAH.AC.0999
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Diaries and memoirs, profusely illustrated with photographs and other mementos, which describe Craton's life, education and work experience as an engineer at General Electric in minute detail, and include his comments on the culture, current events and politics of the times; and correspondence, mostly letters from Craton to his wife and to his mother.
Scope and Contents:
This memoir is the autobiography of a man whose entire career from college graduation to retirement was spent working in one of the giants of American industry, the General Electric Company. His life spanned more than three quarters of the twentieth century and the detail in which it has been recorded provides much scattered historical, cultural, social and economic information about the period.
It is part contemporaneous diary written on a daily or weekly basis, part a record of chronological periods of Mr. Craton's life reconstructed from notes, scattered diary entries, sketches, photographs and memory and part a record of specific experiences, for example the family's boating years, Mr. Craton's time at the War Production Board, his religious life. Mr. Craton referred to it as "my 40-volume autobiography-----a continuous story of my life since birth. I estimate there are at least three million words in this record-----" in a two page autobiographical account written November 28, 1978 for Milton Wise, a former classmate.
References to Mr. Craton's work at G.E. appear in the daily and weekly diary entries but are in separate sections in the record of Mr. Craton's life that was written after his retirement. The story of those years is divided into two sections, one relating to home, family and friends and another to his career at G.E. These sections on his work contain a significant amount of information on the company's transportation interests and the manufacture and merchandising of locomotives and locomotives parts as well as descriptions of Mr. Craton's colleagues.
The year 1942 spent in Washington as a dollar-a-year man at the War Production Board and his account of his trips to Washington immediately before and immediately afterwards paint an interesting picture of war-time Washington, its hotels, restaurants, and cocktail lounges and the social life of which they were a part. They also give some indication of a Federal government rapidly expanding to meet war-time needs at home and abroad.
Major current events occurring during Mr. Craton's lifetime are also noted. They begin with the arrival of the Graf Zeppelin in New York In October 1928; the election of Herbert Hoover as president in that year as well as subsequent presidential elections were recorded as were the depression of the thirties and its effect on family life, and World War II. Developments in the space program and the landing of the astronauts on the moon were watched on television and noted in the memoirs.
The record is replete with Mr. Craton's disapproval of labor unions and their activities and his bias about Jews and Blacks, and reference to social classes that he considered his inferiors. Entries throughout the years from childhood on describe friends, acquaintances and fellow workers in minute detail. They also describe every woman with a pretty face or good figure noticed on the street, in a store, restaurant or hotel and document the drinking that was one aspect of recreational life at the time among some groups.
Looking back on the period from 1949 to 1963 from the vantage point of 1977 Mr. Craton divided it into 3 periods. In the one he entitled "Emancipation" there is a lengthy description of their friendship with the Brightmans, biographical details of the members of the Dinner Club, a detailed account of Bab's wedding and the birth of the first grandchild. This record of friends, family and activities is heavily illustrated with photographs and clippings.
Numerous references to the family's daily living and travel expenses show the changes that occurred in the price level over the years and caused Mr. Craton major concern about inflation.
The memoirs are profusely illustrated with photographs of family, friends and places visited as well as with magazine pictures, menus, programs, and other mementos.
Much of the collection is typed on 8-1/2 by 5 inch notebook sheets. Much is handwritten in a small, neat script. Photographs are labeled.
The Container List indicates by folder whether the contents are diary or memoirs written after the fact.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1: Memoirs, 1902-1983
Series 2: Correspondence, 1923-1982
Biographical / Historical:
Childhood and Youth
Forman Craton, an only child, was born on June 23, 1902 in Syracuse, New York. His mother, Annie Fairbanks Hutchison was the granddaughter of General Orrin Hutchison, a man of some prominence in Onondaga County, New York. His father, Dr. Samuel Boyce Craton, was the great grandson of Joshua Forman, the founder of Syracuse, New York. Dr. Forman earned his medical degree at Syracuse University and became an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist. Somewhat later he confined his practice to diseases of the eye.
Mr. Craton's memoirs recount several unpleasant memories of a dark, gloomy house on McClennan Ave. in Syracuse where he spent his earliest years. Among them were the death of a brother who was a "blue" baby, a series of colds, coughs, sore throats and other respiratory complaints, getting sick on street cars, fear of dogs, and fear of being banished from home for misbehavior.
About April 1, 1908 the family moved to 326 Highland Ave., a socially better neighborhood where they spent the next 7 years which are described by Mr. Craton as among the happiest in his life. The long winters offered a multitude of winter activities for children. They built snowmen, snow forts, snow houses. There were few cars so the streets were not cleared and youngsters went sledding and tobogganing on nearby hills. The tennis court at the Sedgwick Farm Club was flooded for skating and hockey. Indoors the children played "house" with appropriate rearrangement of the furniture or hide-and-seek in houses with large attics. In good weather, hopscotch, baseball and football took over along with climbing trees and riding bicycles.
Burten Holmes' travel pictures, special movies such as "Birth of a Nation" and later Jack London's "The Sea Wolf" as well as books and records were part of the cultural scene. Magazines too, "St. Nicholas", "Boys' Life" and "American Boy" were available. At his mother's instigation young Craton began a stamp collection.
Most of the neighborhood families, including his, belonged to the Sedgwick Farm Club, two and a half blocks from his house. It had large rooms, bowling alleys, a squash court, tennis courts, a children's playground. Dancing school which he attended was held at the club once a week. He also attended Sunday School regularly.
After one term at a private school young Craton transferred to Lincoln, the neighborhood public school, where he finished the 8 grades in 6 years. In summarizing his early years Mr. Craton remarked on the varied backgrounds of his school friends and the fact that rich and poor children mixed well and played together. He mentioned being conscious of class distinctions as early as 1912 and this awareness reappears throughout his life.
The comfortable life of young Forman's early years changed abruptly with the untimely death of his father, Dr. Craton, on February 26, 1915. The family income dropped from $10,000 to $12,000 annually, a very good one for that period, to about $1,500 a year from his father's estate. Shortly after his father's death the boy and his mother moved to 410 Douglas St. It was a "nice flat" but the lad was aware that the neighborhood was not as good as Highland St. Forman gradually lost touch with his old playmates (his mother resigned from the Sedgwick Farm Club to save money) and the boy soon became part of the Douglas St. crowd.
The young Forman began his high school days at North High School. Two of the city's characteristics were important to him during this period. The NY Central R.R. ran through downtown Syracuse and watching the trains was a fascinating pastime. The Erie Canal on which boats were hauled by horse through the city competed with the NY Central for by his attention. Although too slight for competitive sports he was an enthusiastic fan of the football and baseball teams at school. His lone outside activity at school was dramatics.
Work experience during his high school years included several one or two day-at-a-time jobs shoveling snow for the NY Central, laboring work at a steel company, tips for errands at the State Fair, and Christmas clerking at a men's store. His first full time job was as gardener for the Calthop sisters during the summer of 1919, at 20¢ an hour. In the fall of 1919 he got a job working after school and on Saturdays at Bardeen's, a book publishing company. The summer before university he was a machinist's helper at Solrag Process Co. That summer he and his mother moved to a flat at 205 Waverly Ave, a block from Syracuse University where he enrolled in the fall.
To his bitter disappointment the young man was not asked to join Phi Delta Theta, his father's fraternity and this caused great unhappiness in his early days at the university. Because of the necessity to be practical about earning a living for himself and his mother he put aside his interest in writing and cartooning, and majored in mechanical engineering. He excelled in his college work, and was invited to join several honorary fraternities in engineering and mathematics. He made a number of friends both male and female and in spite of his early bitterness over his rejection by his father's fraternity had a satisfying college career. After intercession by a friend of his father's about which Forman later wrote that he was ashamed, he received and accepted a bid from Phi Delta Theta in the middle of his college years.
In August 1923 the Cratons vacationed at Star Island, in the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire, where young Forman quickly became friends with Willette Flitschner, from Louisville, KY. whom he would marry in a few years.
Young Manhood
During his final year at college an interview with Mr. George Pfeiff who was recruiting for a new course in Factory Management at the General Electric Co. led to a job offer in Schenectady, NY. After some soul searching about leaving his mother in Syracuse he left for the job at General Electric in Schenectady. His career at General Electric lasted 38 years.
Homesickness was a serious problem as Forman Craton began his career with the company. With the exception of vacations he had spent all of his young life, including his college years, in Syracuse. He went directly from a vacation at Star Island where Willette was also vacationing to a plant employing 22,000 people in a city in which he was a stranger. His proclivity for introspection, always strong, and his sensitivity to people and his surroundings are clearly evident in his letters to his mother and to Willie in August and September, and recur frequently throughout the years. He turned to poetry at this time for solace, particularly Sara Teasdale. The year 1924 ends with two letters to Willie declaring his love.
Because the young man had been recruited for the Factory Management Course he was moved from spot to spot in the plant, some assignments lasting a week, others several weeks. In 1925 Forman enrolled in an accounting course at G.E. that involved home work. That and almost daily letters to his mother and Willie left him little free time. Still troubled by home-sickness and unhappy in his work, after much agonizing he asked for a transfer to "test" which in effect meant starting again.
He had become convinced that his interests lay in engineering rather than in manufacturing and the test course pointed its members toward design, application engineering and technical sales.
A young Mr. Craton left for the General Electric facility in Erie, a plant with 5000 employees, on January 10, 1926 and never looked back. The transfer brought him immediate satisfaction and pleasure in his work and began a lifetime career. He found Erie and its people interesting, began attending the Unitarian Church where he met and enjoyed knowing a number of young people. His early months there were spent in rented rooms but late in the year he rented an apartment at 1308 W 9th Street in preparation for his marriage to Willie.
Family Life
Forman Craton and Willie Flitschner were married January 27, 1927. He made his first trip for the company, the first of an endless number, in 1927. The year 1928 was a banner year for the young couple. A daughter named Barbara and always called Bab was born on August 28 at Hamot Hospital. His salary having been increased to $42.00 a week in February, they bought a secondhand, dearly beloved Dodge for $225. In late June Forman wrote the first paragraph of his first short story, in an endeavor to follow through on his interest in writing. The year 1928 was also the year that the Graf Zeppelin which had left Germany in October 13 arrived in New York on October 15. In November the Cratons voted for Herbert Hoover who won the presidency by a large electoral majority. His Democratic opponent was Al Smith.
On May 24, 1932 a new baby, Roger Phelps Craton, was born. As the depression hit bottom Mr. Craton's salary was cut to $1900 a year, his work week to 4 days and he felt lucky to still have a job.
The death of Willie's mother made 1935 a sad year for the family. Increasing responsibilities at GE as business improved kept Mr. Craton busy at the plant and frequently out of town. As his responsibilities increased the necessary and expected business entertaining increased keeping him away from home often during the evenings in Erie. He was out of town more frequently also and business entertaining often involved drinking and late nights.
The war years meant greater responsibility at the plant and long working hours for Mr. Craton and the restrictions felt by all families as rationing affected family eating habits and recreation, especially the use of automobiles.
For several years after the children were born Mr. Craton's mother either lived with the family or visited for long periods of time. His mother had become harassed by worry, fears and discontent
and no effort by Mr. Craton seemed to assuage these. This situation continued through out the thirties. On November 19, 1939 Mr. Craton wrote "all of this makes life at home unnatural, strained, unpleasant and nerve wracking."
Mr. Craton's frequent and long business trips made the responsibility for his mother especially difficult for his wife. It was January 1944 before the elder Mrs. Craton left the Craton house to reside at St. Margaret's Home with many misgivings on her part and Mr. Craton's.
His mother's death occurred on September 28, 1947 and an inheritance of about $20,000 from her made building a longed for new home possible in 1948.
Another crisis in their family life was the suicide of Willette Craton's father, "the Colonel", on April 10, 1946. Long widowed he had remarried at age 70, apparently not very successfully. He was also driven by financial worries. What estate there was went to the second wife with only the proceeds of a $1,000 insurance policy to Willette Craton, causing some feeling of resentment.
Graduation from university were important family occasions as were the children's marriages.
Thanksgiving was generally spent with Bab and Tom Moore and their family, Christmas with Roger and Joan and theirs.
Children and Grandchildren
A daughter named Barbara and always called Bab or Babbie was born on August 28, 1928 at Hamont Hospital. Her brother, Roger Phelps Craton was born on May 24, 1932.
Both children did well in school, received good grades, and were a source of pride and satisfaction with their behavior, appearance, and accomplishments. Bab wanted a year at Southern Seminary in Buena Vista, Virginia before entering college. Despite their concern about the expense the Cratons agreed because they feared she could not get all the necessary credits in the Erie public school. Her graduation from Southern Seminary was an important family occasion which involved visiting the Robeys and other relatives living in the area.
Bab left Erie in late September 1946 for her first year at Syracuse University. By 1949 she was a senior at Syracuse University and Roger was a senior at Strong Vincent High School and well-thought of as a young sailor at the Erie Yacht Club.
Bab graduated from college in June, 1950 and she and Tom Moore, an architectural student, were married in August. Since he had one more year for his degree in architecture she went to work in an office in Syracuse. Roger graduated from high school that year and entered the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1975.
The first grandchild, Elizabeth Forman Moore, was born on September 15, 1952. Her father Tom joined an architectural firm in Berea, Ohio where they lived for a time before moving to Brecksville, Ohio. A second grandchild, Peter Moore born in 1955 was followed by another girl, Margaret Joanna Moore, born October 2, 1957 and called Peggy.
Another Moore grandchild, Charles Andrew, born July 3, 1965 shortly became a cause of much
family concern and anxiety because of his failure to thrive and respond developmentally. By April 1970 he was placed in the Sunnyhaven Home in Columbus, Ohio. He was transferred to a state hospital in Breckville in the spring of 1973. Sunnyhaven felt he could no longer be helped there and he had become more difficult to manage. Mr. Craton never became reconciled to Charles' retardation or the fact that he was born to his adored daughter.
Peg Moore the youngest child was thinking about college during the annual Thanksgiving visit in 1974-she was interested in one with a strong art curriculum. Peter Moore was an increasingly excellent football player in high school, winning several awards. He planned to enter Wooster College in the fall, having graduated from high school in 1975 the same year Elizabeth graduated from Bowling Green University. She was attending classes at the Univ. of Georgia, working in the Admissions Office and living at 2511 Planthersville Road in Decatur.
Roger Craton at the University of Pennsylvania joined the fraternity to which his father and grandfather belonged. He was active in Masks and Wigs and also played lacrosse. He graduated with high honors in 1954 and married Joan Gibson the following November.
Roger and Joan Craton moved to Detroit, he to work in a bank and finish his M.A. degree at night.
By 1960 Roger was working for the Ford Motor Company. His first child, a boy named Lincoln after Joan's father, was born May 30, 1960. Cynthia, his second child was born on August 1, 1962. Both of these children attended private schools and lived in London for the several years during which Roger Craton worked for Ford in London.
By 1971 Roger had returned to Ford in Detroit, and had bought a large home in Bloomfield Village, Birmingham, Michigan. He had been appointed comptroller of Ford's North American Automotive Operations, a 30 million dollar a year business.
On July 5, 1980 Roger phoned his parents that he was leaving Ford to become chief finance officer with a seat on the board of directors of Chesebrough-Pond Corporation effective August 1, 1980. His new annual compensation was to be $300,000. Thus meant that the Roger Craton family would move to Greenwich, Connecticut in June 1981 when Cynthia Craton would graduate from high school.
A Thirty Eight Year Career At The General Electric Co.
The following account of Mr. Craton's career was written by him in November 1978 at the request of Milton Wise of the class of 1924 of Syracuse University, who was compiling a book on the surviving members of their class at the College of Applied Science.
"On July 7, 1924 I reported in Schenectady for General Electric's new Factory Management Course and thus began a rewarding GE career that was to span the next 38 years. However, a year on this course convinced me I was slanted more toward engineering than manufacturing. So I transferred to the "test" course, which pointed its members toward both design and application engineering as well as technical sales. It proved to be a good move.
Long fascinated by trains and discovering GE's deep involvement in rail transportation apparatus, I soon transferred to the Erie, Pa. plant where I finally headed traction motor test nights and later took locomotive test. The latter was an impossible dream come true, involving electric locomotive riding and operation on the 4-mile test track. In November 1926 I moved into railway control engineering at Erie to design circuitry for gasoline-electric cars and various types of electric-drive locomotives. Also I had an indoctrination course on traction motor design and application.
In 1930 the Lackawanna suburban electrification out of Hoboken was inaugurated. It included two 3,000-volt trolley-battery-diesel locomotives for transfer freight service between the Jersey City and Secaucus yards. I'd done the control engineering on these locomotives and helped put them into service, This included the thrill of operating the locomotive pulling a 105-car freight train up grade out of Jersey City, through the Bergen Hill tunnel and on to Secaucus, to me an incredible experience. This assignment was my first intimate exposure to railroading and years later I wrote an article about it which appeared in TRAINS Magazine.
In 1931 I moved from design into locomotive application engineering and commercial work, the two functions being combined at Erie. However we were fast sinking into the abyss of the Depression. By 1932 the only active job we had was apparatus for the Pennsylvania Railroad electrification; if you weren't fortunate enough to be working on that, and I wasn't, it was touch and go whether you'd be short-timed or dismissed. I got down to four days a week and 157 per month with a wife and two children to support but I hung onto my job. That was the bottom. In 1933 things began to improve slowly, I was assigned the New Haven Railroad commercial work at Erie. The New Haven was progressive and interested in dieselization as well as possibly extending their electrification to Boston. We made extensive diesel-switcher studies culminated by an initial order for ten units. This was followed in 1937 by an order for six 3,600-hp 216-ton 11,000/600-volt AC/DC passenger locomotives for operation into Grand Central. On September 21, 1938 while running freight tests on these, we found ourselves in the middle of the hurricane of that date, another experience I wrote about for TRAINS.
In the late 1930s GE and American Locomotive Co. were partners in the diesel business; they built 100 tons and up using our equipment and we anything below 100. I was assigned promotion of our diesels with the New England railroads. This meant extensive traveling involving memorable episodes. My experiences on the Boston & Maine, where we had a demonstrator, were particularly noteworthy and were covered by a TRAINS article entitled "Joy & Pain on the Boston & Maine."
In 1940 I became manager of Industrial Haulage at Erie which had responsibility for the GE mining and industrial locomotive business, about to come on strong with World War II in the immediate offing. This was my first managerial job. I became active in the Mining & Industrial Electric Locomotive Section of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and was chairman of the section. Also I spent much of 1942 in Washington as a dollar-a-year man on the War Production Board and was responsible for scheduling the manufacture of all locomotives in the U.S. below 100-tons; these included both diesel and steam as well as the military requirements. I made a 2-month trip to Hawaii in early 1945 to appraise the postwar market for diesels in the sugar industry.
In 1945 I became assistant general sales manager and in 1947 general sales manager of GE's locomotive and transportation equipment business. The product line included electric-drive locomotives of all types and sizes, electrical propulsion equipments sold to other builders for locomotives, subway and rapid-transit cars, trolley cars and coaches, off-highway vehicles, and a large parts business. After the war we had a period of inflation and labor trouble including a 9-week strike which made pricing and shipping promises difficult. Also as 1950 approached we struggled to get our business up to $100,000,000 annually, which would keep about 5,000 employees busy at Erie. So it was a challenging and interesting time.
In the early 1950s due to rapid growth the Company was reorganizing, decentralizing and establishing new measurements. In 1953 a study team was formed to recommend how the Company's foreign operations could be blended smoothly into all this. On the team were four from international operations, four from domestic, and the chairman, an international man. On this team I represented the Company's heavy apparatus business. The nine of us holed up in a New York hotel for over a year on this when we weren't traveling around on interviews including a 3-week trip to Central and South America. It was one of the most fascinating of my business experiences.
After this I returned to my marketing job at Erie, the position having been upgraded slightly from "sales" to "marketing" in the reorganization. In 1956 I spent three months taking the Company's Advanced Management Course. Back in Erie again, I headed a team to study the reorganization of our own business. we spent four months on this and presented our report in May 1957. We recommended the business be split up into three decentralized sections: 1) Locomotives; 2) Equipments; 3) Parts sales. Our recommendations were adopted and the department reorganized. I became general manager of the equipment business, a position I held until my retirement o July 1, 1962 at age 60.
Equipment doesn't sound as glamorous as locomotives but actually is more so. We'd adapted our locomotive propulsion apparatus to oil-well drilling which put us into that business; I've visited an oil-well drilling platform 60 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. With expansion of open-pit mining and the proliferation of heavy off-highway vehicles, our motorized-wheel business was booming. Mass transit was promising an even greater future. Also we supplied electrical equipments to Alco and Baldwin as well as our own associates in the Erie Plant. These lines along with parts kept some 2,500 people busy in our Equipment Section."
Finances
It took 17 years thanks to his early career change and the depression for Mr. Craton's salary to reach %5,000. The next step up meant that he was eligible to join Elfun, an investment fund for G.E. managers and executives.
With the end of the depression and the increasing industrial activity caused by war production Mr. Craton's salary had risen to $6,700 a year. Overtime and extra compensation brought this to $8,500. By November 1946 several increases had raised his base salary to $9,000 and following a long strike at the plant this figure was raised to $9,720. A March 13, 1946 journal entry noted that Mr. Craton's income tax for 1945 was $1,800 -- "more than he used to make". One of the satisfactions of these increases was the purchase of a small boat that added a great deal to the family's recreation.
Mr. Craton became eligible for the GE stock plan in 1953 and was authorized to purchase 900 shares of company stock over the next 10 years at $71.00 a share. His stock in GE enabled him to retire at age 60 instead of 65. He noted that the 2500 shares he owned in 1965 for which he had paid about $60,000 over the years had a market value of $300,000. It was the income from the Elfun trusts and the dividends from G.E. stock, substantial contributions to his retirement income, that made the extensive travel during his early retirement years possible.
Despite the post-war salary increases and his investment income that appeared to keep pace with the inflation of those years, inflation was an abiding concern for Mr. Craton.
Leisure Time
As a young single man much of Mr. Craton's social life revolved around the Unitarian Church. He enjoyed the young people he met at church-related social affairs and found them interesting.
After their marriage the Cratons played bridge with friends, occasionally played poker for small stakes, went to movies, and attended lectures and concerts at Chautauqua during the season. They entertained and were entertained by friends for cocktails and dinner and made weekend visits to friends living out of town. Swimming, walking the beach and picnics at Peninsula, a local recreation area, were important when the children were young. They were regular television viewers with a number of favorite programs. The Watergate hearings were watched daily during the second Nixon administration and all space shots were followed with interest. The week-end sports programs were watched with anticipation and pleasure. Mr. Craton's interest in opera is well-documented and he was a regular radio and television fan of the Metropolitan Opera performances. He also bought and played frequently recorded arias.
A friendship with the Brightmans developed into a more active social life than usual but this subsided after the Brightmans left Erie.
Recreation during the years from 1945 to 1964 was centered in the Yacht Club which Mr. Craton joined when he bought a small boat. Boating then became a major recreational activity. Young Roger quickly became an excellent sailor, participating in sail boat races with skill and enthusiasm. The first boat was replaced by a larger but still modest one. Mr. Craton's interest eventually resulted in his being elected commodore of the Erie Yacht Club, a highly prized distinction. The Cratons participated in all of the Yacht Club activities, using it for dinner, dancing, and special occasions, even after Mr. Craton sold his boat.
Mrs. Craton joined a local book club in 1928 and was still a member in 1982.
Most of the home repair and upkeep was done by Mr. Craton, a careful and persistent workman who was proud of his results. He was indefatigable in searching for parts and pleased to avoid what he considered outrageous charges, particularly by plumbers. Mrs. Craton did most of the gardening but he helped with the heavy work.
During periods when Mr. Craton was keeping a diary on a daily or weekly basis much of his spare time was devoted to writing it. He also spent many hours in creative writing in an effort to get published and for a brief period in drawing cartoons for possible publication.
Mr. Craton became an avid photographer and gave it special emphasis after the children were born and during vacations. He also used a movie camera for some occasions.
During his retirement years Mr. Craton was a regular attendant at the YMCA Friday speakers luncheon, lunched with a friend on a weekly basis and he and Willie enjoyed frequent dinners out with the Reeds and the Ogdens, friends of long-standing.
For a period of years immediately following retirement Mr. Craton was actively engaged in fundraising for the United charities campaign, particularly among G.E. retirees and played a major role in a capital fund drive for the Booker T. Washington YMCA.
Religious Life
As a small child Mr. Craton went to Sunday School at the May Memorial Unitarian Church in Syracuse where the minister was the Reverend John H. Applebee. After his father's death when he was twelve years old he went to the church service with his mother. In his teens he also belonged to the Young People's Religious Union. He was one of two delegates from May Memorial selected to attend the Unitarian Laymen's Third Annual Institute at Star Island, Isles of Shoal, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 28 - August 11, 1923 where he first met and fell in love with Willette, his wife.
In Schenectady as a young man on his first job Mr. Craton attended All Souls Unitarian Church. He liked the people and the minister, the Reverend Ernest Caldecott, very much and depended heavily on the church for his religious and social life during a period of severe loneliness and homesickness. He began however to have some problems with Unitarianism. Although he enjoyed the sermons as lectures he found them lacking in spirituality. During this period Mr. Craton was also unhappy with the factory management course at General Electric. He felt he was not suited to the manufacturing part of the General Electric Co. although he was much impressed by the vast scope of the company. He finally worked out a transfer from factory management to "test" that resulted in a transfer from Schenectady to Erie, PA and the real beginning of a satisfying career in GE.
The Unitarian church in Erie was neither as large nor as socially well-connected as that in Schenectady but the people were hospitable and the Reverend Charles Judson Dutton an interesting minister. Despite his concerns about the lack of spirituality he continued to attend the church until the children were ready for Sunday School. Both Cratons felt that the children needed a different Sunday School for their religious initiation.
The Cratons tried St Paul's Episcopal for a time and then the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in the early 40's. There they remained first they attended without joining the church. His attendance was spotty because he was overwhelmed with work and travel. Later the yacht club activity took up the weekends and attendance dropped to Christmas and Easter. The Cratons finally joined the Presbyterian Church because they wanted Bab and Tom Moore to be married there. His retirement did not get Mr. Craton to resume regular attendance but Mrs. Craton was a faithful volunteer in the church library for many years.
Health
Mr. Craton's health as a child seems to have been unexceptional. There were coughs, colds, upper respiratory complaints and several of the common childhood diseases but nothing out of the ordinary.
As a young man he developed an intermittent bladder problem that medication helped some and that seemed to be more nuisance than serious. This was life-long. There was also a chronic urethritis that he noted with concern. While he recorded a number of minor ailments in his journal he lost little or no time from work. The first hospitalization was for an appendectomy in 1947. Mr. Craton's care and concern about his own health carried over to his wife and children. He seemed excessively upset about the children's routine childhood illnesses.
Once Mr. Craton reached the management level at the Corporation he made annual visits to the Mayo Clinic for physical examinations paid for by the company. These were continued for many years after his retirement when Mrs. Craton became a Mayo patient also. The Clinic findings for both of the Cratons are recorded in some detail.
Having disregarded a doctor's advice about a car trip to Florida in 1969 Mr. Craton spent several weeks hospitalized there and several more recovering enough to return to Erie. A detached retina in the summer of 1970 resulted in hospitalization, surgery and a long period wrestling with double vision. Much dreaded prostate surgery occurred in 1971 successfully.
The annual visit to the Mayo Clinic in 1973 brought a diagnosis of angina pectoris, use of nitroglycerine, orders to cut his drinking to one drink a day, to cut down on sweets and to walk every day.
Chronic emphysema was beginning to interfere with Mr. Craton's physical activity and to diminish his pleasure in those he pursued.
Another detached retina meant another hospitalization and recovery period. This was followed by ambulatory surgery for a fracture of a hand. A severe bronchitis took Mr. Craton back to Hamot Hospital again in the first week of February. By this time Mr. Craton was almost living the life of an invalid whose physical condition dictated his activity or lack of it. In May of 1982 there was another hospitalization for tests all of which negative. Following the second retina surgery Mr. Craton in his words "developed a post-operative nervous condition that lasted for months, that required doctoring, extensive use of Valium...For months I had to fight depression, apprehension and the jitters. I had no appetite and lost perhaps as much as twenty pounds". (Special note at beginning of Diary for the year 1978)
During his working and retirement years there were a number of dental problems that seemed to be exacerbated by his objections to the dentist's charges. He continued with the same dentist year after year and also continued complaining about him.
Mr. Craton's Writing
Mr. Craton had interests from a very young age in writing and in drawing cartoons. The interest in writing was life-long, that in cartoons short-lived. Because of the necessity to be practical about earning a living for himself and his mother, Mr. Craton put aside his interest in writing and cartoons and majored in mechanical engineering. Throughout his life however he continued to try to write for publication and document his life whenever he could find the time to do so. In June 1927 for example, six months after his marriage he wrote his first short story. In 1934 after a vacation trip to Canada he tried another short story. The memoir itself is testament to his writing interest. The diary sometimes abandoned for lack of time was always returned to -- once after a lapse of 27 years. This gap was filled during his retirement years when he also wrote extensively on particular periods of his life or special activities such as boating.
A number of statements scattered throughout the memoirs indicate that regular entries were important to him, helped him cope with problems and enhanced his enjoyment of his good times.
Mr. Craton also tried persistently when he could find the time to write and rewrite for publication. While he had no success with his interest in short-story writing and none with the cartoons he submitted to Collier and the Saturday Evening Post for publication, he did succeed with several articles about trains and railroads. An article about diesel electric locomotives in industry resulted in a check for $35.00 and publication in the magazine Purchasing in 1944. Another milestone was the publication in Steel of an article for which he was paid $55.00.
Yankee, a magazine with a circulation of about 350,000 accepted and paid $250 for an article entitled "Candle Light" that was based on visits to the Isles of Shoals when Mr. Craton was a young man. Trains also accepted a railroading article "Joy and Pain on the Boston and Maine" for which it paid $45.00 and in December 1970 published "Tarzan Jr." and paid $125.00 for it. The published articles were a source of pride and satisfaction.
Travel
Travel was an important part of Mr. Craton's life. His business trips were frequent and often lengthy, taking him away from wife and family. They included time spent in Hawaii, Australia, Mexico and Venezuela on G.E. business.
Family travel included frequent trips of short duration to visit family or friends, annual trips to the Mayo Clinic combined with visits to family or friends, and trips to Buena Vista, Virginia where cousins, the Robeys lived and operated Southern Seminary, a girls preparatory school. The earliest vacation trip of note was in 1931 to Colorado. This was by car, driving an average 300 miles per day for a total mileage of 3,940 miles. Gasoline averaged 15¢ a gallon, oil 25¢ a quart. There was a trip to Canada in 1933, a Great Lakes Cruise in 1936.
During the war Mr. Craton was sales manager for locomotives for industry, the military, the Maritime Commission and underground mining. Because G.E. thought there was a potential post-war market in Hawaii, particularly in the sugar fields Mr. Craton was sent there while wartime travel restrictions were still in effect to determine the design of a standard diesel electric unit for use in Hawaii.
This trip began a life long love affair with the islands that resulted in seven more trips of several months each with Mrs. Craton after he retired.
During those seven years the Cratons spent two or three of the worst months of the Erie winter in Hawaii.
Mr. Craton's retirement at age 60 meant a real emphasis on travel that started with a nine week trip to Europe in 1962 and included Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and was followed by several months in Florida in early 1963. In 1964 there was a South Sea Island cruise followed by several months in Hawaii, in 1966 a trip of 80 days around the world and in 1967 a return to Europe, with close friends, Barbara and Charles Reed. 1968 saw a trip to the North Cape, the Scandinavian countries, Russia and Ireland.
A trip to Florida in 1969 was an unfortunate one. Mr. Craton spent much of it in hospital and recovering from a back problem. There was a return to Hawaii in 1971 but a planned return in 1972 had to be cancelled because a bleeding intestinal tract sent Mr. Craton into the hospital again. Several months were required for recuperation.
In June 1972 the Cratons returned to Canada, this time to Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and Vancouver, and again in January 1973 returned to Kappa Sands, Kauai, Hawaii where they spent Erie's worst winter months each year from 1973 through 1977.
A second detached retina for Mr. Craton prevented any winter travel in 1978 but by June of 1978 the Cratons were able to visit Joan and Roger Craton who by then were living outside London. It was a memorable trip with a number of short trips beyond the London area.
Mid March of 1979 took the Cratons on a trip to the American south. Their first stop was to see their great-grandchild Carrie, and then on to Charleston, Savannah, Hilton Head and Jekyll Island, where they visited their friends the Bauschards. Mr. Craton did not enjoy much of this trip, would have preferred being home but realized that his wife needed both a change and less work and more rest than she got at home. They cut the trip short by a week and returned home.
The last recorded trips were to see Joan and Roger and their new home in Connecticut in late March and Roger's summer place in Good Hart in July 1982.
Provenance:
Gift to Smithsonian from Mrs. Willette Craton, October 9, 1992
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.