The collection consists of 235 pieces of music ephemera assembled by an anonymous California musicologist over several decades. The contents include such things as concert ticket stubs; show programs; handbills; publicity stills; record store posters; nightclub souvenirs; autographs; contracts, lobby cards; movie stills; postcards; fan and record industry magazines; sheet music; an oversize RKO theatre owners' advertising book for the 1942 sensation "Syncopation," starring Charlie Barnet, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Gene Krupa, et al; and miscellany such as matchbook covers and novelty promotional pieces. There are just a few letters in the collection. The collection contains materials representing both bands and band members, and individual artists. In many cases, there are only one or a few relevant items. Persons and acts represented include: Ray Anthony, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Les Brown, Dave Brubeck, Cab Calloway, June Christy, Nat King Cole, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Erroll Garner, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Glen Gray, Fletcher Henderson, Woody Herman, Harry James, Louis Jordan, Sammy Kaye, Stan Kenton, Gene Krupa, Kay Kyser, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, Guy Lombardo, Vincent Lopez, Jimmy Lunceford, Gordon MacRae, Freddy Martin, Billy May, Johnny Mercer, Glenn Miller, Vaughn Monroe, Gerry Mulligan, Red Norvo, Patti Page, Buddy Rich, Artie Shaw, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Spivak, Rudy Vallee, Sarah Vaughan, Fred Waring, Chick Webb, Ted Weems, Lawrence Welk, Paul Whiteman, Margaret Whiting, and Benny Goodman. In other cases, the collection contains an item or items (such as menus) that have been autographed. The collection contains autographs or autographed items for the following: Gene Krupa, Jess Stacy, Teddy Wilson, Blue Barron, Eddie Duchin, Shep Fields, Ziggy Elman, Glen Gray Band, Milt Gabler, Horace Heidt, Dick Jurgens, Kay Kyser, Guy Lombardo, Xavier Cugat, Hal McIntyre, Art Mooney, Buddy Morrow, Harry James and "Tiny" Timbrell.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into six series.
Series 1: Magazines, 1939-1950
Series 2: Programs, 1930-1975
Series 3: Publications, 1949-1965
Series 4: Sheet Music, 1935-1943
Series 5: Advertisements, 1932-1954
Series 6: Ephemera, 1938-1953
Provenance:
Purchased at auction by the Archives Center from Cohasco, Inc. in 2016.
Restrictions:
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.
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.
Papers relating to Foley's career as an authority, consultant, auctioneer, writer, and educator on the subject of food and wine: newsletters and publications, catalogs and programs for auctions, menus, photographs, wine tasting notes, labels, business records, and an interview of Foley conducted by John Fleckner.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into 7 series.
Series 1: Personal Papers, 1964-2002
Series 2: Business Papers, 1972-2002
Series 3: Charity Events, 1979-2002
Series 4: Auction House and Wine Merchant Catalogues and Newsletters, 1970-2004
Series 5: Esquin Imports Wine Merchants, 1963-1981
American Wine Documentation Project, 1976-2002 (NMAH.AC.0817)
Provenance:
Collection donated by Dennis Foley, 2005.
Restrictions:
Collection open for research on site by appointment. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
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 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 1, Project Correspondence, 1876-1899
Subseries 2, General Correspondence, 1861-1901
Series 3, Personal Correspondence, 1850-1942
Series 4, Personal Materials, 1835-1946
Subseries 1, Financial Records, 1876-1901
Subseries 2, Estate and Real Estate Records, 1835-1921
Subseries 3, Other Huttons, 1874-1936
Subseries 4, Personal Materials, 1878-1946
Series 5, Diaries, 1866-1901
Series 6, Notebooks, 1860-1900
Subseries 1, Engineering and Survey Field Notes, 1860-1899
Subseries 2, Notebooks, 1871-1886
Subseries 3, Notes, 1863-1900
Series 7, Cashbooks, 1856-1899
Series 8, Professional Projects, 1830-1965
Subseries 1, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 1828-1965
Subseries 2, Hudson River Tunnel, 1887-1901
Subseries 3, Harlem River Bridge, 1878-1892
Subseries 4, Other Projects, 1858-1932
Subseries 5, Identified Project Files, 1872-1900
Subseries 6, Specifications, 1870-1900
Subseries 7, Legal Documents, 1886
Subseries 8, Professional Organizations, 1870-1902
Series 9, Printed Materials, 1826-1913
Subseries 1, Printed Materials by Hutton, 1852-1900
Subseries 2, Printed Materials by Others, 1826-1913
Subseries 3, Newspaper, Journals, and Magazine Clippings, 1855-1901
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:
The collection is open for research. Gloves must be worn when handling unprotected photographs and negatives.
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.). Division of Information, Technology and Society Search this
Extent:
5 Cubic feet (22 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Travel diaries
Advertisements
Diaries
Blotters (writing equipment)
Business records
Manuals
Lantern slides
Stock certificates
Stereographs
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Date:
circa 1890s-1969
Summary:
The collection documents the technology of lighting and various business aspects of the General Electric Lighting Division throughout the 20th century and consists of correspondence, bulletins, price lists, business record books, stock certificates, sales and advertising materials, scrapbooks, photographs, and lantern slides.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of approximately five cubic feet of correspondence, bulletins, price lists, business record books, stock certificates, sales and advertising materials, scrapbooks, photographs, and lantern slides. The collection documents the technology of lighting and various business aspects of the GE Lighting Division throughout the twentieth century.
Series 1, Historical Background Materials, 1910-1969, contains documentation on the history of the National Electric Lamp Company and the development of the incandescent lamp. The European Diary of 1928 is a narrative written by three General Electric employees—Samuel Doane, Chief Engineer, Joseph Kewley, Sales Manager, and George Osborn, Sales Manager. This narrative describes their business trip to Europe in the spring of 1928. It contains black-and-white photographs, menus, brochures, maps, postcards, and drawings detailing their travels in Paris, Nice, Milan, Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam, and England. The Record of Accomplishment, 1969, is a chronological listing (time line) of various events and/or accomplishments within General Electric.
Series 2, Executive Records, 1903-1955, consists of correspondence, annual reports, and technical standardization notices. The technical standardization notices were created by the Standardization Committee. This committee made decisions on how to facilitate and increase sales, improve quality, cheapen cost, and further the interests of the members of the Lamp Association. The reports cover a variety of subjects such as packing boxes, felt washers, high candle power lamps, and tabulating machines. Many of the reports contain black-and-white photographs. The Lamp Committee Reports seek to detail the demand for incandescent lamps and their improvements.
Series 3, House Organs, 1919-1959, contains documentation on in-house publications for General Electric. The Stimulator, 1919-1920, promoted "lighting profits and cemented friendliness, cooperation, progress, and quality." The Lamp Letter, 1947-1950, was published by the Lamp Department and dealt specifically with lamp-related issues. The Lamp Department Bulletin, 1947-1950, was produced for GE personnel and dealt with a variety of issues from sales to lamp types to licensing issues. The See Better—Work Better Bulletin, 1959, was published by the Lamp Division as a service to industrial and commercial lamp users.
Series 4, Sales and Advertising Materials, 1910-1955, includes price lists for lamps from both General Electric and other companies, manufacturers' schedules, data books, sales notebooks for sales representatives, and Edison Mazda Lamp advertising cards. The advertising cards are approximately 3" x 6" and are in color. They contain ad slogans such as "His Only Rival," "Satisfied Customer," Edison's Dream Comes True," "Have You Electricity?" and "I like Lots of Light."
Series 5, NELA School of Lighting Records, 1920-1930, documents the school, now known as the GE Lighting Institute, for training sales people and customers in the proper application of various lighting products. The records contain quarterly reports and general and lighting course descriptions.
Series 6, Business and Stock Records, 1890-1912, contains record and minute books and stock certificates from other lamp companies. The record books contain correspondence, resolutions, stockholder information, and committee reports.
Series 7, Scrapbooks and Photographs, 1890s-circa 1950, contains one scrapbook from 1923 with black and white photographs, clippings, correspondence, charts, telegrams, and booklets documenting General Electric's Nela Park location. The photo albums contain black and white photographs of staff, lamps, bulbs, tubing, tabulating, filaments, lead wires, stems, mounts, and lighting installations. The scrapbook and photo albums have indices.
Series 8, Lantern Slides, 1880-1950, consists of glass plates of Edison, images of people in the work place, and lighting equipment.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight series.
Series 1, Historical Background Materials, 1910-1969
Series 4, Sales and Advertising Materials, 1914-1953
Subseries 4.1, Miniature Mazda Lamps, 1914-1935
Subseries 4.2, Large Mazda Lamps, 1914-1934
Subseries 4.3, Carbon Lamps, 1915-1922
Subseries 4.4, Miscellaneous, 1914-1953
Series 5, NELA School of Lighting, 1920-1930
Series 6, Business and Stock Records, 1890-1912
Subseries 1, Business Records, 1890-1912
Subseries 2, Stock Records & Certificates, 1890-1912
Series 7, Scrapbooks and Photographs, 1890s-circa 1950
Series 8, Lantern Slides, 1880-1950
Biographical / Historical:
Established in 1911, Nela Park (named for the National Electric Lamp Association) in Cleveland, Ohio, has through the present day served as both administrative headquarters and research laboratory for the development and sale of General Electric's (GE) lighting products. In the years following Thomas Edison's electric lamp invention (1879) many companies began to make and sell lighting devices. A merger of Edison Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric in 1892 created GE, which quickly grew to dominate the market. Westinghouse and several much smaller companies struggled to compete. These smaller lamp companies could not afford engineering and research facilities on a scale comparable with those of General Electric.
The National Electric Lamp Company was organized on May 3, 1901, by Franklin S. Terry (Sunbeam Incandescent Lamp Company), and Burton G. Tremaine, H. A. Tremaine and J. Robert Crouse (all from Fostoria Bulb and Bottle Company and Fostoria Incandescent Lamp Company). Terry suggested that the small companies band together to operate an engineering department, conduct lamp research and development, improve manufacturing methods, and build better lamp-making machinery. He further proposed to raise capital from and share patents with GE. This built upon an earlier organization, the Incandescent Lamp Manufacturers Association, organized by GE in 1896. The new National Electric Lamp Company was a holding company in which—unknown even to many of the smaller companies' executives—GE held a controlling (75%) interest. In 1911, GE's involvement with National became public during anti-trust proceedings. GE then purchased the outstanding stock and absorbed the smaller companies by converting them into divisional units.
Thomas Edison had, in 1882, moved his company's lamp manufacturing operation from the Menlo Park laboratory to a new facility in East Newark (Harrison), New Jersey. Named the Edison Lamp Works, this plant became the main administrative and sales facility for Edison Electric's and later GE's, lamp business. Research moved to Edison's new West Orange laboratory. In 1900, after the merger, GE established a research lab in Schenectady, New York. After forming National, Terry and B. G. Tremaine consolidated the administrative functions of that company in Cleveland and by 1910 were actively seeking space for a new office and laboratory campus. They selected a site along Euclid Avenue that was then on the outskirts of town. This became Nela Park (the "Company" had changed to "Association" in 1906). In addition to the National buildings, GE began moving its directly-owned lamp operations to Cleveland after the 1911 settlement. From 1925 through 1930 the various departments at Harrison moved to Nela Park, with the sales department being one of the last to move. GE's lighting research was carried out at both Nela Park and Schenectady.
A focal-point at Nela Park is the GE Lighting Institute, formerly known as the Nela School of Lighting. Organized by the Illuminating Engineering Section of the Engineering Department in 1921, the Lighting Institute continues to train sales people and customers in the use and proper application of various lighting products.
For additional information about Nela Park, General Electric and the National Electric Lamp Company see:
Arthur A. Bright, Jr., The Electric Lamp Industry, MacMillan, 1949.
Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900, Harvard University Press, 1953.
Leonard S. Reich, "Lighting the Path to Profit: GE's Control of the Electric Lamp Industry, 1892-1941," in Business History Review Vol. 66, pages 305-34.
Hollis L. Townsend, A History of Nela Park: 1911-1957, published by General Electric.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
William J. Hammer Collection (AC0069)
Separated Materials:
The Division of Work and Industry (Electricity-related collections) hold several artifacts. See accession numbers: 33,407; 43,120; 68,492; 232,822; 1997.0388 and 1998.0231.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Division of Information Technology and Society (now the Division of Work and Industry) by Mary Beth Gotti, Manager of the General Electric Lighting Institute on March 22, 2001.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves.
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 Archival collections of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA) donated in 2006. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created as part of the New Deal legislation initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, was a public work relief program for unemployed men designed to reduce high unemployment during the Great Depression. The CCC carried out a broad natural resource conservation program on national, state, and municipal lands from 1933 to 1942. This collection contains papers, photographs, and ephemera collected and created by alumni of the CCC and donated to the NACCCA archives.
Scope and Contents:
This material was acquired by the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA)from CCC alumni and originally housed in the NACCCA archives in St. Louis, Missouri. Photographic materials, including loose photos, slides, snapshots, group photos, panoramic photos, and albums and binders of photographs; printed materials, including newspapers published by individual companies, camps and districts, and the national CCC newspaper, Happy Days; materials documenting each camp, including camp histories, personal memoirs, blueprints of camps and projects worked on; the papers of C.E. Ward, Educational Director of the CCC's 3rd Corps, which document the planning and implementation of educational activities in that region; miscellaneous materials, including camp rosters, cartoons, menus, poems, pamphlets, booklets, magazines, manuals, enrollee discharge papers, work logs, and sheet music; and other more recent materials such as research papers, books on the CCC, selected audiotape and video interviews with some of the alumni; and other miscellaneous items. The collection is arranged into nine series.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into nine series.
Series 1: Scrapbooks, 1853-2003, undated
Series 2: State Material, 1922-2008, undated
Series 3: Publications, 1924-2006, undated
Series 4: C.E. Ward, 3rd Corps, 1933-2001, undated
Series 5: Photographs, 1929-2008, undated
Series 6: General Ephemera, 1915-2006, undated
Series 7: Bidwell Addendum, 1933-1987, undated
Series 8: Bires Addendum, 1934-1985, undated
Series 9: Audiovisual Materials, 1933-2009, undated
Biographical / Historical:
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal era program, created in 1933 to reduce unemployment, a direct result of the Great Depression. The CCC provided national conservation work across the United States for young, unmarried men. Veterans could be enrolled in the CCC after verification of their service by the Veteran's Administration. Veterans were exempt from the age and marriage restriction. Projects included planting trees, bulding flood barriers, combatting forest fires, maintaining forest roads and trails, and building recreational facilities in the National Park system and a host of other projects. There were separate CCC programs for Native Americans of recognized tribes and African Americans. In 1942, with the waning of the Great Depression and America's entry into World War II in December 1941, resources devoted to the CCC (men and materials) were diverted to the war effort. Congress ceased funding for the CCC and liquidation of the CCC was included in the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation Act (56 Stat. 569) on July 2, 1942, and for the most part completed by June 30, 1943. Appropriations for the liquidation of the CCC continued through April 20, 1948.
Related Materials:
Materials at Other Organizations
National Archives and Records Administration
Record Group 35, Civilian Conservation Corps
Provenance:
Collection donated by National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni in 2006.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research use.
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with cotton gloves. Researchers may use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis and as resources allow.
Viewing film portions of the collection requires special appointment, please inquire; listening to LP recordings is only possible by special arrangement.
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. Contact the Archives Center at 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.
Topic:
Conservation of natural resources -- 1930-1950 Search this
Collection documents Jane and Michael Stern's travels across the United States collecting data for their books on American material culture subjects, with particular emphasis on food and dining.
Scope and Contents:
Collection primarily consists of the raw materials amassed by Jane and Michael Stern as they traveled the United States, researching for their books on American material culture subjects, with particular emphasis on food and dining. These materials include writings and notes from their various stops while traveling; photographs and slides of places they visited; vintage postcards collected in their travels; paper ephemera such as take-out menus, placemats, etc.; large quantities of trade literature such as product cookbooks (some dating back to the 1920s), food packaging and brochures on food related subjects, under headings such as "Meat, Fish, Game", "Parties, Etiquette, How-To", "Baking" and numerous others; trade literature on other material culture subjects the Sterns wrote books about with headings which include Rodeo, Cowboys, Indians" and many others; correspondence; business records, articles, and clippings. The collection is arranged into five series: Series 1, Research Documentation and Writings, 1975-2015, undated; Series 2, Product Cookbooks, and Trade Literature, 1890-1993, undated; Series 3, Photographic Materials, 1947-2008, undated; Series 4, Subject Files, 1910-1995; and Series 5, Vintage Postcards, undated.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into five series:
Series 1, Research Documentation and Writings, 1975-2015, undated
Series 2, Product Cookbooks, and Trade Literature, 1890-1993, undated
Series 3, Photographic Materials, 1947-2008, undated
Subseries 3.1, Photographs, 1947-2002, undated
Subseries 3.2, Slides and Transparencies, 1965-2008, undated
Series 4, Subject Files, 1910-1995
Series 5, Vintage Postcards, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Jane Grossman Stern (1946-) and Michael Stern (1946-) are American writers best known for their popular series of books titled Roadfood. These publications provided recommendations of restaurants, truck stops, diners, delis, bakeries, and other food-related establishments in the United States who served classic American regional specialties. The Sterns are also authors of books about American material culture subjects including truckers, cowboys, kitsch, and dog shows. They have been guests on public radio, contributors to magazine columns, and have won numerous awards for their work.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Jane and Michael Stern, 2016.
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.
Approximately 100 cubic feet of photographs, slides, postcards, scrapbooks, brochures, artwork, drawings, and other ephemera documenting engine-powered vessels of the international maritime industry.
Brochures: The brochures are from international passenger lines and cruise lines. They detail both individual ships and shipping lines; they also detail features and services offered by the ship and crew.
Photographs: The photographs, which are captioned, depict ships of all kinds and sizes and in various locales. Some are of specific elements and equipment in the ships, including design elements.
Scrapbooks: Contain photographs, postcards, menus, brochures and flyers, advertisements and clippings. The majority cover passenger and cargo lines, whlie others are on regions or specific topics.
Postcard: include both commercially printed images and photographic postcards sent to Rau by friends.
Drawings and oversized materials, include blueprints of ships, dock and harbor facilities; artwork; posters; maps and charts; maritime calendars, large photographs, and miscellany.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into five series.
Series 1: Scrapbooks
Series 2: Brochures
Series 3: Photographs and slides
Series 4: Postcards
Series 5: Drawings and oversized materials.
Biographical / Historical:
Rau was a Navy veteran and later an officer of the court for New York State and New York City until he retired in 1989. From 1989-2006, he served as the editor of the maritime historical publication of the Steamship Historical Society of America.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Katherine Ellis, daughter of William Rau, through his estate, 2013.
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.
A scrapbook created by Fannie Sutter detailing her time attending Battle Creek Normal School of Physical Education. It contains photographs, programs of events, and personal notes written by Fannie Sutter and her classmates concerning exercising, acting, and dressing for plays.
Scope and Contents:
An album compiled by Fannie Sutter while a student at Battle Creek Normal School of Physical Education, in Battle Creek, Michigan. The album contains black-and-white photographs and other school-related ephemera such as invitations, menus, clippings, and miscellany. The photographs show students engaged in physical activities such as swimming, canoeing, camping, walking, picnics, parties, and other forms of entertainment. The students often dressed in costume and staged plays, dance performances, and musicals.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series.
Biographical / Historical:
The Battle Creek Normal School of Physical Education was founded in about 1908 as part of the complex of training schools and colleges associated with Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's sanitarium. This complex included medical training for doctors, nurses, dieticians, and physical therapists as well as the school to train physical education teachers. The all-women's school, organized by Dr. Kellogg, emphasized a program of vigorous outdoor activities. It was one of about two dozen schools in the nation that specifically focused on a physical education curriculum.
Provenance:
Purchased at auction from Carmen D. Valentino in 2014.
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.
Original documents and papers generated by William J. Hammer and by various companies and individuals with whom he was associated. Includes material related to the research and inventions of Edison, Bell, Tesla, the Curies, etc.
Scope and Contents:
This collection includes original documents and papers generated by Hammer and by various companies and individuals and various secondary sources assembled by Hammer between 1874 and 1934. Hammer's lifelong association with the foremost scientists of his day -- Edison, Bell, Maxim, the Curies, the Wright brothers, and others - afforded him a unique opportunity to collect materials about the development of science along many lines.
This collection, which includes rare historical, scientific, and research materials, was donated by the International Business Machine Corporation to the Museum of History and Technology in 1962 and held by the Division of Electricity. In 1983 it was transferred to the -Archives Center. The collection was badly disorganized when received and contained many fragile documents in poor condition. The collection was organized and arranged as reflected in this register.
The collection documents in photographs, manuscripts, notes, books, pamphlets, and excerpts, the beginnings of electrical technology. In its present state, it comprises four series: Series 1 contains twenty-two boxes of the William J. Hammer Papers, containing both biographical and autobiographical material; Series 2 has twenty boxes of material on Edison; Series 3 consists of thirty-three boxes of reference material; and Series 4 holds twenty-one boxes of photographs and portraits. See the container list beginning on page 39 for more detailed information on the contents of the collection.
Most of the material in the collection is chronologically arranged. However, in some cases alphabetical arrangement has been employed, for example, in the arrangement of portraits of eminent men of electrical science (Series 4, Boxes 78-80, 100-101), and the arrangement of publications (by authors' last names).
Hammer did original laboratory work upon selenium, radium, cathode rays, x-rays, ultra-violet rays, phosphorescence, fluorescence, cold light, and wireless. These aspects of his career are reflected in many parts of the collection: in Series 1 there are articles, notes, diagrams, sketches, graphs,, and correspondence; in Series 3 articles, magazines, news clippings, and bound pamphlets. Tie contributed many technical writings, some of which are found in Series 1.
Papers detailing Hammer's aeronautical activities were transferred to the National Air and Space Museum. They consist of two scrapbooks and one cubic foot of aeronautical photographs of balloons, airplanes, and gliders and one-half cubic foot of correspondence. For further information contact the National Air and Space Museum Archives at (202) 357-3133.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into four series.
Series 1: William J. Hammer Papers, 1851-1957
Series 2: Edisonia, 1847-1960
Series 3: Reference Materials, 1870-1989
Series 4: Photographs, 1880-1925
Biography of William J. Hammer:
William Joseph Hammer, assistant to Thomas Edison and a consulting electrical engineer, was born at Cressona, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1858, and died March 24, 1934. His parents were Martha Augusta Bech (1827-1861) and William Alexander Hammer (1827-1895). He attended private and public schools in Newark, New Jersey, and university and technical school lectures abroad.
On January 3, 1894, Hammer married Alice Maud White in Cleveland, Ohio. They had one daughter, Mabel (Mrs. Thomas Cleveland Asheton). Alice Hammer died in 1906.
In 1878 Hammer became an assistant to Edward Weston of the Weston Malleable Nickel Company. In December 1879 he began his duties as laboratory assistant to Thomas Edison at Menlo Park, New Jersey. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, he worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device. In 1880 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In this first year, the plant under general manager Francis Upton, turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of Incandescent Electric Lighting"! (Hammer's memoranda and notes, Series 2).
In 1881 Edison sent Hammer to London as Chief Engineer of the English Electric Light Co. In association with E. H. Johnson, general manager, Hammer constructed the Holborn Viaduct Central Electric Light Station in London. This plant included three, thirty-ton "Jumbo" steam-powered dynamos (generators), and operated 3,000 incandescent lamps. Holborn was the first central station ever constructed for incandescent electric lighting. Hammer began its operation on January 12, 1882, by lighting the Holborn Viaduct.
In 1882 Hammer also installed a large isolated lighting plant containing twelve Edison dynamos at the Crystal Palace Electric Exposition and the Edison Exhibit at the Paris Electrical Exposition.
At this time Hammer also designed and built the first electric sign. The sign spelled the name "Edison" in electric lights, and was operated by a hand controlled commutator and a large lever snap switch. It was erected over the organ in the Crystal Palace concert hall.
In 1883 Hammer became Chief Engineer for the German Edison Company (Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft), later known as Allegemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. Hammer laid out and supervised the installations of all Edison plants in Germany. While in Berlin he invented the automatic motor-driven "flashing" electric lamp sign. The sign, which flashed "Edison" letter by letter and as a whole, was placed on the Edison Pavilion at the Berlin Health Exposition in 1883.
On his return to the United States in 1884, Hammer took charge of some of Edison's exhibits, including Edison's personal exhibit, at the International Electrical Exhibition held under the authority of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. There he built the first flashing "Column of Light." He also became confidential assistant to E. R. Johnson, president of the parent Edison Electric Light Company. Together with Johnson and Frank J. Sprague, he became an incorporator of the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor company. He also was elected a trustee and the company's first secretary.
Hammer installed an all-electric house at Newark, New Jersey in 1884 and he devised various electrical devices and contrivances for an unusual party for friends and colleagues. (See "Electrical Diablerie" beginning on page 6).
At the end of 1884 Hammer became chief inspector of central stations of the parent Edison Electric Light Company. For over two years he made financial, mechanical, and electrical reports on the various stations throughout the United States. During 1886-87 he was chief engineer and general manager of the Boston Edison Electric Illuminating Company. He also acted as contractor for the company. He laid $140,000 of underground tubing and installed Sprague Electric Motors.
In 1888, acting as an independent engineer, he was placed in charge of completing the 8,000 light plant of the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St.Augustine Florida. At the time this was the largest isolated incandescent lighting plant ever constructed. Also in 1888 Hammer was appointed consulting electrical engineer to the Cincinati Centennial Expostition, and as a contractor designed and installed over $40,000 worth of electrical effects.
Hammer was appointed Edison's personal representative remarked, "There are a lot of crowned heads in the Edison business. How many of them am I subservient to?" Mr. Edison answered "You take no instructions except from Thomas A. Edison." Hammer asked "What are your instructions?" Mr. Edison replied, 'Hammer, I haven't any. Go and make a success of it.' In Paris he set up and operated all of Edison's inventions, which embraced nineteen departments and covered 9,800 square feet of space. He also built a huge Edison lamp forty-five feet high employing 20,000 lamps. Edison remarked, 'He had entire charge of my exhibit at the Paris Exposition, which was very successful." This was the largest individual exhibit at the Exposition, costing $100,000. Mr. Edison replied, "I want you to go right out and have a card engraved William J. Hammer, Representative of Thomas A. Edison. You are the only representative I have here," and he complimented him on his work adding, "The French government will do something handsome for you for your work." Hammer replied that he would not raise his hand to get it and did not believe in giving such honors to people who seek them. Mr. Edison said, "You are wrong. You are a young man and such things are valuable. At any rate if there's anyone in this exhibition who deserves recognition, you do, and I'm going to see you get it' (Hammer's memoranda and notes, Series 2). Thirty-four years later, in 1925, through the personal influence of Edison, Hammer was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government.
In 1890 Hammer returned to the United States and opened an office as a consulting electrical engineer. He was in private practice until 1925, making reports, conducting tests, and giving expert testimony in patent suits.
On January 31, 1890, Hammer formed the Franklin Experimental Club of Newark where boys could come and carry on experiments, build apparatus, and listen to lectures. Hammer equipped the laboratory at his own expense. One side was an electrical laboratory and the other a chemical laboratory. About forty-five boys joined. Each boy had a key to the club and a section of a bench with his own drawer for keeping notes, tools, and other equipment. In 1892 the structure was destroyed by fire from a saloon next door, ending Hammer's plans for a large and useful institution.
In 1896 Hammer was elected president of the National Conference of Standard Electrical Rules, which prepared and promulgated the "National Electric Code."
In 1902 in Paris, Hammer visited Pierre and Marie Curie, the discoverers of radium and polonium. They gave him nine tubes of radium and one of polonium to bring back to the United States. He also acquired some sulphide of zinc, with which he mixed radium carbonates, producing a beautifully luminous powder. This was the first radium-luminous material ever made. By mixing the powder with Damar varnish he produced the first radium-luminous paint. He was also the first person to make colored (and white) luminous materials. In 1907 he invented and patented a process for producing colored phosphorescent materials by combining phosphorescent and fluorescent substances.
Back in the United States in the fall of 1902 and into 1903, Hammer applied his radium-luminous materials to thirty different objects: luminous dials for clocks and watches, toys, artificial flowers, radium luminous gun sights, taps and pulls for lamp sockets, switches, keyholes, push buttons, telephone transmitters, poison bottle labels, a small plaster figure, push pins, and writing implements among others. He did not patent the invention due to the scarcity and high cost of radium, but later in an important suit involving foreign and American patents of radium-luminous materials, his testimony and that of other noted scientists and professionals of the day who had visited his home and laboratory proved that his work completely anticipated that of all inventors both in the United States and abroad. In 1902 he was one of the first persons to be burned with radium.
Hammer gave eighty-eight lectures on the Curies' work and on radium and radioactive substances. He wrote the first book published on radium, Radium and other Radioactive Substances, 1903. Hammer proposed and used radium for cancer and tumor treatment, successfully treating and curing a tumor on his own hand in July 1903. Tie also supplied several hospitals with radioactive water he had made and conducted extensive experiments with x-rays, cathode-rays, radium-rays, ultraviolet lights, phosphorescence, fluorescence, and cold-light. He was probably the first to suggest many wartime uses for radium-luminous materials, such as airplanes, instruments, markers, barbed-wire, and landing fields.
Hammer also did important work with selenium, a nonmetallic element that resembles sulphur and tellurium chemically. It is obtained chiefly as a by-product in copper refining, and occurs in allotropic forms. A grey stable form varies in electrical conductivity depending on the intensity of its illumination and is used in electronic devices. Hammer invented selenium cells and apparatus, and suggested industrial uses for selenium and other light-sensitive cells.
In 1886 Hammer devised a system for automatically controlling street and other lights by use of a selenium cell. In 1892 he designed a torpedo that could be steered by searchlight and selenium cell. In the early 1900s he suggested many other uses for "light" cells, including burglar alarms, dynamo control, buoy, railroad signaling, automatic gun firing, transmission of music, stethoscope recorder, automatic operating shutters, automatic boiler feed, snow recorder, and electric motor control.
At the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 Hammer was Chairman of the Jury for Telegraphy, Telephony, and Wireless. He was also a member of the "Departmental" Jury ("Applied Science: Electricity") and of the committee appointed to organize the International Electrical Congress at St. Louis in 1904.
In 1906 Hammer received the "Elliott Cresson" gold medal from the Franklin Institute for his "Historical Collection of Incandescent Electric Lamps," accumulated over thirty-four years. This collection received a special silver medal at the International Electrical Exposition at the Crystal Palace, London, England, in 1882, and "the Grand Prize" at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904.
During the First World war Hammer served as a major on the General Staff of the, Army War College, Washington, D.C., where he was attached to the Inventions Section of the War Plans Division and later to the operations Division at the war Department in charge of electrical and aeronautical war inventions. He did special work at the U.S. Patent office, marking and delaying patents that might be useful to the enemy and served on the Advisory Board of Experts attached to the Alien Property Commission. He was elected Historian general of the Military order of the World War (1926-1928) and was a member of the Society of American Military Engineers.
Hammer was an early aeronautics enthusiast and became the owner of one of the first airplanes sold in the United States to an individual. Even in his last few years of his life, Hammer's interest in airplanes did not wane. In 1931, by the permission of the Secretary of the -Navy, Hammer made a twelve-hour flight in the Los Angeles dirigible from the Lakehurst, New Jersey airdrome along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to New York, flying over New York City at night.
Hammer served on numerous committees. In 1916 he was a member of a special committee, appointed by the Aeronautical Society of America. one of his responsibilities on this committee was to recommend methods for the formation of a reserve force of civilian aviators for the Army. At the start of World War I, Hammer was appointed chairman of a committee on camouflage by the Aeronautical Society. During the war, he flew airplanes and tested sound devices and was also among the first five selected out of thousands for the dissemination of propaganda into many countries. He also examined documents and papers captured from spies and prisoners of war to see if these material contained any technical matter of value to the U. S. Army.
Hammer traveled extensively as a delegate of the Military Order of World War I. For example, in 1922 he attended the aeronautical Congress and Flying Meet in Detroit, Michigan. In the same year he also attended Immigration Conferences of the National Civic Federation in New York.
Between 1922 and 1928 Hammer intensified his efforts in collecting and organizing autographed portraits of eminent scientific men, a project he had been working on for over forty-five years. Tie displayed many of these portraits with his Historical Collection of Incandescent Electrical Lamps in -his New York home. At this time he also prepared an elaborate bibliography on selenium and its industrial and scientific applications.
Major William Joseph Hammer, described by Edison as "my most valuable assistant at Menlo Park" died of pneumonia March 24, 1934.
'Electrical Diablerie':
"ELECTRICAL DIABLERIE"
N.Y. World, January 3, 1885 and Newark, N.J. Daily Advertiser and Journal, January 3, 1885
Some years ago, (1884) on New Year's eve, an entertainment was given at the home of Mr. William J. Hammer, in Newark, N.J., which, for the display of the powers of electricity has seldom, if ever, been equaled. Mr. Hammer, who has for years been associated with Mr. Edison, both in this country and in Europe, desiring to give his old classmates, the "Society of Seventy-Seven," a lively and interesting time, invited them to "an electrical dinner"at his home.
The invitations which were sent out were written upon Western Union telegram blanks with an Edison electric pen. When the guests arrived and entered the gate, the house appeared dark, but as they placed foot upon the lower step of the veranda a row of tiny electric lights over the door blazed out, and the number of the house appeared in bright relief. The next step taken rang the front door bell automatically, the third threw open the door, and at the same time made a connection which lit the gas in the hall by electricity.
Upon entering the house the visitor was invited to divest himself of his coat and hat, and by placing his foot upon an odd little foot-rest near the door, and pressing a pear-shaped pendant hanging from the wall by a silken cord, revolving brushes attached to an electric motor brushed the mud and snow from his shoes and polished them by electricity. As he was about to let go of the switch or button, a contact in it connected with a shocking coil, caused him to drop it like a hot potato. Up-stairs was a bedroom which would be a fortune to a lazy man; he had only to step on the door sill and the gas was instantly lighted. The ceiling was found to be covered with luminous stars, arranged to represent the principal constellations in the heavens-while comets, moons, etc., shone beautifully in the dark. By placing one's head on the pillow, the gas, fifteen feet away, would be extinguished and the phosphorescent stars on the ceiling would shine forth weirdly, and a phosphorescent moon rose from behind a cloud over the mantel and slowly describing a huge arch disappeared behind a bank of phosphorescent clouds on the other side of the room; by pressing the toe to the foot-board of the bed the gas could again be relit.
Pouring a teacup of water into the water clock on the mantel and setting the indicator would assure the awakening of the sleeper at whatever hour he might desire. There was also in the hall outside the room a large drum, which could be set to beat by electricity at the hour when the family wished to arise. The whole house was fitted throughout with electric bells, burglar alarms, fire alarms, telephones, electric cigar lighters, medical coils, phonographs, electric fans, thermostats, heat regulating devices, some seven musical instruments, operated by electricity, etc.
Upon the evening referred to nearly every. piece of furniture in the parlor was arranged to play its part. Sit on one chair and out went the gas, take another seat and it would light again; sitting on an ottoman produced a mysterious rapping under the floor; pressure on some chairs started off drums, triangles, tambourines, cymbals, chimes and other musical instruments; in fact, it seemed unsafe to sit down anywhere. The quests stood about in groups and whispered, each hoping to see his neighbor or a new comer caught napping.
One visitor (Brown) secured an apparently safe seat, and was telling a funny story--he had left electricity far behind--but just as he reached the climax, a pretty funnel-shaped Japanese affair like a big dunce cap, that seemed but a ceiling ornament which was held in place by an electromagnet, dropped from overhead and quietly covered him up, thus silently extinguishing the story and the story-teller.
A big easy chair placed invitingly between the folding doors joining the double, parlors sent the unwary sitter flying out of its recesses by the sudden deafening clamor of twenty-one electric bells hidden in the folds of the draperies hanging in the doorway. In a convenient position stood the silver lemonade pitcher and cup, the former was filled with the tempting beverage, but no matter how much a guest might desire to imbibe one touch convinced him that the pitcher and cup were so heavily charged with electricity as to render it impossible for him to pour out a drink or even to let go until the electricity was switched off from the hidden induction coil.
Some one proposed music, and half a selection had been enjoyed when something seemed to give way inside the piano, and suddenly there emanated from that bewitched instrument a conglomeration of sounds that drowned the voices of the singers, and the keys seemed to beat upon a horrible jangle of drums, gongs and various noise-producing implements which were fastened inside of and underneath the piano.
After the guest were treated to a beautiful display of electrical experiments, under the direction of Mr. Hammer, and Professor George C. Sonn, they were escorted to the dining-room, where an electrical dinner had been prepared and was presided over by 'Jupiter," who was in full dress, and sat at the head of the table, where by means of a small phonograph inside of his anatomy he shouted, "Welcome, society of Seventy-Seven and their friends to Jove's festive board." The menu was as follows: "Electric Toast," "Wizard Pie," "Sheol Pudding," "Magnetic Cake," "Telegraph Cake," "Telephone Pie," "Ohm-made Electric Current Pie," "Menlo Park Fruit," "Incandescent Lemonade," "'Electric Coffee" and "Cigars," etc., and music by Prof. Mephistopheles' Electric Orchestra.
About the table were pretty bouquets, and among the flowers shone tiny incandescent lamps, while near the center of the table was placed an electric fan which kept the air cool and pure, and at each end was a tiny Christmas tree lighted with small incandescent lamps, planted in a huge dish of assorted nuts and raisins. Each lamp had a dainty piece of ribbon attached to it upon which the initials of the Society and the date were printed, and each guest received a lamp to take away with him as a souvenir of the occasion. Plates of iced cakes made in the form of telephones, switches, bells, electric lamps, batteries, etc., stood on each side of the center piece.
Promptly at 12 o'clock, as the chimes of the distant churches came softly to the ears of the assembled quests, pandemonium seemed to change places with the modest dining-room. A cannon on the porch, just outside the door, and another inside the chimney, were unexpectedly discharged; and at this sudden roar, every man sprang back from the table; the lights disappeared; huge fire-gongs, under each chair beat a tattoo. The concussion produced by the cannon in the fireplace caused several bricks to come crashing down the chimney, and as the year of 1884 faded away, the table seemed bewitched. The "Sheol Pudding" blazed forth green and red flames illuminating the room, tiny tin boxes containing 'Greek" fire which had been placed over each window and door were electrically ignited by spirals of platinum iridium wire heated by a storage battery and blazed up suddenly; the "Telegraph Cake" clicked forth messages said to be press reports of the proceedings (it was also utilized to count the guests and click off the answers to various questions put to it); bells rang inside the pastry; incandescent lamps burned underneath the colored lemonade; the thunderbolt pudding discharged its long black bolts all over the room (long steel spiral springs covered with black cloth) and loud spirit rapping occurred under the table. The silver knives, forks and spoons were charged with electricity from a shocking coil and could not be touched, while the coffee and toast (made by electricity) were made rapidly absorbed; the "Magnetic Cake' disappeared; the "Wizard" and "Current Pies' vanished, and 'Jupiter" raising a glass to his lips began to imbibe.
The effect was astonishing! The gas instantly went out, a gigantic skeleton painted with luminous paint appeared and paraded about the room, while Jupiter's nose assumed the color of a genuine toper! His green eyes twinkled, the electric diamonds in his shirt front (tiny lamps) blazed forth and twinkled like stars, as he phonographically shouted "Happy New Year'. Happy New Year!" This "Master of Cererionies' now becoming more gentle, the guests turned their attention to the beautiful fruit piece, over four feet high, that stood in the center of the table. From the fruit hung tiny electric lamps, and the whole was surmounted by a bronze figure of Bartholdils "Statue of Liberty;" uplifted in "Miss Liberty's" right hand burned an Edison lamp no larger than a bean.
The dinner finished, and there was much that was good to eat, notwithstanding the "magical" dishes which they were first invited to partake of, speeches were delivered by Messrs. Hammer, Rutan, McDougall, 'Brown, Duneka, and Dawson, and an original poem was read by Mr. Van Wyck. Upon repairing to the parlors the guest saw Mr. Hammer's little sister, May, dressed in white and mounted upon a pedestal, representing the "Goddess of Electricity:" tiny electric lamps hung in her hair, and were also suspended as earrings, while she held a wand surmounted by a star, and containing a very small electric lamp.
Not the least interesting display of electricity took place in front of the house, where a fine display of bombs, rockets, Roman candles, Greek fire and other fireworks were set off by electricity, which was by the way, the first time this had been accomplished. The guests were requested to press button switches ranged along the front veranda railing thus causing electricity from a storage battery to heat to a red heat tiny platinum iridium spirals attached to each fuse of the various pieces of fireworks thus sending up rocket after rocket, as well as igniting the other pieces which had been placed in the roadway in front of the house.
An attempt was made to send up a large hot air balloon to which was attached a tiny storage battery and an incandescent signal lamp but a sudden gust of wind caused the ballon to take fire as it rose fr(xn the ground. This constituted the only experiment made during the evening which was not an unqualified success. The innumerable electrical devices shown during the progress of the dinner were all operated by Mr. Hammer, who controlled various switches fastened to the under side of the table and attached to a switchboard, which rested on his lap, while the two cannons were fired by lever switches on the floor, which he operated by the pressure of the foot. Electricity was supplied by primary and storage batteries placed under the table. After an exhibition of electrical apparatus and experiments with a large phonograph, the guests departed with a bewildered feeling that somehow they had been living half a century ahead of the new year."
Expositions and Exhibitions:
The many Expositions held at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries were important for the Edison Electric Company's future business. In particular the Paris Electrical Exposition, 1881, and the Crystal Palace Exposition in London in 1892 were introductions for the company's international business enterprises. Edison, therefore, sent his ablest men from the Menlo Park staff (Batchelor, Hammer, Jehl, Johnson) to Europe to oversee the installation and promotion of the company's exhibits.
THE INTERNATIONAL PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1881
The International Paris Electrical Exposition was held during the summer of 1881. Many of Edison's electric lighting systems, ranging from arc lights to incandescent devices, were exhibited. A model of the Edison central-station lighting system showed an arrangement of incandescent lights within a complete electrical distributing system, including novel appliances and controls of the Edison system. "The completeness of its conception made a profound impression on the foremost European electrical engineers of that era." (Josephson, Matthew. Edison, A Biography. p. 252). Edison also exhibited his first "Jumbon generator. It was "direct-connected" to its driving engine, another area in which Edison pioneered. Edison improved upon the original design of William Wallace's "Telemachon' - a generator coupled to a water-powered turbine. Wallace had earlier in the decade produced the first dynamo in America.
Charles Batchelor headed the Edison exhibits within Paris. Edison received many gold medals and diplomas and was awarded the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
The William J. Hammer Collection contains various reports and catalogues exhibited at the International Exposition of Electricity. (Series 3, Box 44, Folders 1-4)
THE CRYSTAL PALACE EXHIBITION OF 1882
At the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1882 in London, Edison displayed a great many of his inventions, including: the steam dynamo; specimens of street pipes and service boxes used in the Edison underground system of conductors, and the system of house conductors with devices for preventing abnormal increase of energy in house circuits; apparatus for measuring the resistance of his lamps, for measuring the energy consumed in lamps, and rheostats for restoring currents; also thermogalvano-meters, carbon rheostats, dynamometers, photometers, carbon regulators, Weber meters,, current regulators, and circuit breakers for controlling electric light circuits; the carbon relay, the pressure relay, and the expansion relay; the telegraph system in Morse characters; and the Roman character automatic telegraph.
Thomas Edison also exhibited the carbon telephone, the musical telephonograph, telephone repeater, and numerous apparatus for demonstrating the method of varying the resistance of a closed circuit by contact with carbon, illustrative of the experimental factors of the Edison carbon transmitter. Incandescent lamps, the process of the manufacture of lamps, and various designs of electric light chandeliers were also on display.
Hammer won the silver medal at the exposition for the first complete development of the incandescent electric lamp from its initial stages to date. At the exhibition the first hand-operated flashing electric lamp sign was displayed, which was invented and built by Hammer.
The collection contains photographs of the Edison dynamo, and the Edison Electric Lighting Plant of 1882 erected by Hammer. The official Catalogue of the International Electric and Gas Exhibition, and various articles from the Daily Telegraph, Daily Chronicle, and Daily News are also included within the collection (Series 4, Box 99 and Series 3, Box 42, Folder 1-2).
THE BERLIN EXPOSITION OF 1883.
The Berlin Exposition of 1883 had the first motored flashing electric sign designed, built and operated by Hammer. The electric sign spelled out the word "Edison" letter by letter and was used on the Edison pavilion in the Health Exposition. It has most features of today's flashing sign.
The collection contains two photographs of the first flashing sign (Series 4, Box 99).
THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRICAL EXHIBITION OF 1884
The Franklin Institute International Electrical Exhibition was held in Philadelphia from September 2 to October 14, 1884. Many of Edison's companies had display booths at the exhibition. The Edison Electric Light Company showed in operation their system of house lighting as supplied from a central station. The Edison Company for Isolated Lighting exhibited their system of lighting factories, hotels, hospitals, and other places situated beyond the reach of a central lighting station. A full assortment of Edison lamps and dynamos also made up parts of other exhibits. Also displayed at the exhibition was the first flashing column of light, which Hammer designed and built.
Included within the collection are a variety of photographs of the exhibitions. Four pamphlets also are contained in the collection (Series 3, Box 1, Folder 3), (Series 4, Box 99).
THE EXPOSITION OF THE OHIO VALLEY AND THE CENTRAL STATES OF 1888
The Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Central States, in Cincinnati from July 4 to October 27, was in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Cincinnati. The exposition showed the progress and ramifications of the first hundred years of this settlement.
The space occupied by permanent buildings was greater than that covered by any building for exhibiting purposes on the Western continent. T',ie exposition developed the Electric Light Plant to make a special feature of electric lighting in the evening. Several companies used this opportunity to make exhibits of their apparatus and for their equipment to be used for illumination. The Edison Lamps were used for displays in showcases and pavilions of exhibitors of the Park Building.
The collection contains photographs of the halls of the exposition and a poster which is a souvenir of the electrical display of the exposition. An official Guide of the Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Central States is included within the collection. (Series 4, Box 99), (Series 3, Box 42, Folder 4).
THE SUMMER CARNIVAL AND ELECTRICAL EXHIBITION, ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK, 1889
The Summer Carnival and Electric Exhibition held at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada was to celebrate the opening of the Canadian Pacific Short Line to St. John and Portland. The Electrical Exhibition was the most popular of the displays present, containing the Monster Edison Lanm, the Mysterious Electric Fountain, and many other inventions.
The William J. Hammer Collection contains a poster that illustrates some of the leading exhibits at the Electrical Exhibition (Series 4, Box 99).
PARIS UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION OF 1889
The Universal Exposition of 1889 held in Paris was larger than all previous expositions held there. The famous Eiffel Tower was its principal attraction.
A large portion of the exhibit hall within the Palace of Mechanical Industries contained Thomas Edison's electrical inventions, including various electric lamps for use in houses. Variations of the telephone also were shown. During the Paris Exposition Europeans were exposed to the phonograph for the first time. Hammer represented Edison's interests at the Paris Exhibition.
The collection contains articles from New York World, New York Herald and Electrical World on Edison's exhibits at the Paris Exposition (Series 3, Box 44, folder 6). A scrapbook of photographs from the exhibition showing exhibit buildings and halls and loose photographs showing Edison's exhibits are included in the collection (Series 4, Box 98).
THE CRYSTAL PALACE EXHIBITION OF 1892
The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1892 was held in London. Hammer displayed a great variety of products in the machine room of the Electrical Exhibition. Sockets for controlling individual incandescent lamps on alternating currents and the Ward Arc Lamp for use on incandescent circuits were just a few of the items displayed. Edison's companies displayed specimens of all types of incandescent electric lamps for public and private illumination. They also displayed primary batteries for use in telegraphy, telephony, household work, and engines.
The William, J. Hammer Collection contains a variety of photographs of the electrical exhibition. The Official Catalogue and Guide of the Electrical Exhibition is also contained within the collection (Series 4, Box 99), (Series 3, Folder 2, Box 42).
LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, 1904
The Louisiana Purchase Expostition of 1904, held in St. Louis, Missouri from April 30 to December 1, celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. The nineteen million people who attended made it the largest exposition ever. The year 1904 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Edison's invention of the carbon filament lamp and central power station system.
F.J.V. Skiff, the exhibits classifier for the fair, developed a twofold classificatory arrangement. He organized exhibits in a sequential synopsis corresponding to the sixteen different departments of the exposition. The principal exhibition buildings were built in the shape of a fan. The departments of education, art, liberal arts, and applied sciences-including electricity - headed the classification, Skiff noted, because they "equip man for the battle and prepare him for the enjoyments of life.' Departments devoted to displays of raw materials such as agriculture, horticulture, !inning, forestry, fish and game came next. Anthropology, social economy, and physical culture concluded the classification.
The Hammer collection contains photographs of Hammer with other Chairmen of Domestic and Foreign Jurors of the Electricity Section of the International Jury of Awards of the Louisiana Exposition and Hammer as chairman of the jury on telegraphy, telephony, and wireless. (Series 4, Box 102). A pamphlet by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company on the exhibit of the Radiophone at the Department of Applied Science is also part of the collection (Series 3, Box 42, Folder 5).
THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION OF 1915
The Panama Pacific Exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal and the four hundredth anniversary of the European discovery of the Pacific Ocean. It was held in San Francisco from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Approximately nineteen million people attended the exposition.
The eleven main buildings of the exposition were grouped around a central court of the Sun and Stars at the entrance of which was the famous Tower of Jewels. The main group of exhibits comprised the Palaces of Education, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Varied Industries, Mines,
Transportation, Agriculture, Horticulture and all kinds of food products. During the exposition special days were set aside to honor industrialists Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company provided a large searchlight to flash out a Morse code greeting on the nighttime sky for their arrival.
The William J. Hammer Collection contains a pamphlet on the "Illumination of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition." The pamphlet describes the lighting of the exposition, and the use of arc lamps ' searchlights, incandescent electric lamps, and gas lamps (Series 4, Box 99), (Series 3, Box 43).
Provenance:
Collection donated by IBM, 1962.
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.
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.
The collection documents the history of the Cozy Inn and Restaurant in Thurmont, Maryland.
Scope and Contents:
Collection documents the management, day-to-day operations, activities, and history of the Cozy Inn business. Materials include registration records; accounting papers and other business records; correspondence, including some fan mail; internal employee newsletters; the restaurant's menus for ordinary days, and for special occasions and holidays; take-out and catering menus; recipes; placemats; handbooks for employees; internal memos and instructions about hiring procedures, employee comportment and protocol; and advertising and promotional materials. It is evident that the Cozy Inn's owners were aware of its historical significance and they saved advertising brochures from various time periods, newspaper clippings and magazine advertisements, certificates, honors and awards, photograph albums, a scrapbook, and voluminous amounts of clippings. The photographs contained in the collection are extremely rich, documenting both the physical changes in the hotel and restaurant over the years, entertainment activities, and several celebrity guests who stayed there. The collection is arranged into five series: Series 1, Administrative Files, 1885-2014, undated; Series 2, Menus, 1943-2015, undated; Series 3, Printed Advertisements and Ephemera, 1932-2014, undated; Series 4, Magazine Articles and Newspaper Clippings, 1935-2013, undated; and Series 5, Photographic Materials, 1920-2009, undated.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1, Administrative Files, 1885-2014, undated
Series 2, Menus, 1943-2015, undated
Series 3, Printed Advertisements and Ephemera, 1932-2014, undated
Series 4, Magazine Articles and Newspaper Clippings, 1935-2013, undated
Series 5, Photographic Materials, 1920-2009, undated
Biographical / Historical:
The Cozy Inn was an eighty five year old business when it closed in 2014. Located on a major highway near Gettysburg and the Catoctin Mountains, Wilbur Freeze started what was then called Camp Cozy in 1929, with just three cabins, later adding a gas station to attract tourists, and in the 1930s, he added in a small lunch counter, and eventually a full service restaurant. It is an excellent example of a 20th century business that started small and grew large, increasing the services offered over time. The Inn grew both in size and popularity, and the Freezes added entertainment attractions in order to increase business, including festivals and special offerings for various holidays. Some of the attractions were eccentric, such as hot air balloons and live animal shows.
In 1942, the presidential retreat Camp David (then known as Shangri-La) was established just six miles away. This led to the Cozy Inn becoming the headquarters for Secret Service agents, reporters and photographers during events that occurred at Camp David. Sometimes foreign dignitaries stayed there. State and local politicians such as members of the Senate, governors of states, cabinet members, and Presidents' family members, also were guests.
The Freezes were fond of boasting that they were the oldest family-run restaurant in the state. They also capitalized on their proximity to Camp David, using the fact in their advertising and naming the Inn's rooms after presidents. In 2005, they started a small Museum on the history of the Inn, its famous guests, and its connection to Camp David. They also sold souvenirs that related to that connection. They regularly hosted weddings and other events and were famous for their lavish holiday decorations. At Christmas they set up gingerbread houses, multiple Christmas trees, a miniature railroad village, etc. The Cozy Inn's restaurant cultivated a large number of repeat, loyal customers with its family atmosphere and comfort food. Some of its dishes became locally famous, like its clam chowder.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Gerald G. Freeze, 2015
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.
Pan-American Exposition (1901: Buffalo, N.Y.) Search this
Panama-California Exposition (1915 : San Diego, Calif.) Search this
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.) Search this
Scottish National Exposition (Edinburgh, Scotland: 1908) Search this
Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition (1926 : Philadelphia, Pa.) Search this
Sydney International Exhibition (Sydney, Australia: 1879) Search this
Texas Centennial Central Exposition (Dallas, Texas: 1936) Search this
Universal Exhibition (1873 : Vienna, Austria) Search this
Western Pennsylvania Exposition (1915 : Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Search this
World's Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.) Search this
World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition (1884-1885 : New Orleans, La.) Search this
Extent:
46 Cubic feet (123 boxes and 150 map-folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Motion pictures (visual works)
Postcards
Greeting cards
Stationery
Panoramas
Sheet music
Posters
Shopping bags
Photographs
Stereographs
Menus
Place:
Disneyland (California)
Date:
1841-1988
Scope and Contents:
Memorabilia of fairs and World's Fairs throughout history, both in the United States and abroad, including photographs, stereographs, panoramas and slides; printed materials; postcards; sheet music; philatelic material; stationery and greeting cards; menus and food service items; posters; shopping bags; motion picture films; and other items.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into three series.
Series 1: World's Fair Materials, 1841-1988
Series 2: Reference and Miscellaneous Materials
Series 3: Larry Zim Materials
Series 4: Oversize Materials, 1909-1968
Biographical / Historical:
Larry Zim, whose actual name was Larry Zimmerman, was an industrial designer, a historian of World's Fairs who wrote extensively on the subject, and a collector of World's Fair memorabilia.
Provenance:
Collection by bequest of Larry Zim.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but two oversize folders are 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.
Topic:
Crystal Palace -- (New York, New York) Search this
The collection documents the life and career of ice skater Dick Price, with emphasis on the 1940s and 1950s, when he was in the prime of his career performing ice shows throughout Europe. Included are photograph albums, letters, most sent from Europe by Price to his parents describing performances and his travel adventures; programs from various ice shows; personal financial records; school report cards, and work-related permits, contracts, and insurance.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the life and career of ice skater Dick Price, with emphasis on the 1940s and 1950s, when he was in the prime of his career and performing ice shows throughout Europe. Included are several photograph albums featuring portraits and action shots of Price and other skaters, some autographed, highlights of his travels, his friends and family. Also included is a scrapbook containing clippings and other printed materials; letters most sent from Europe by Price to his parents describing performances and his travel adventures; printed materials, especially programs from the various ice shows; personal financial records; school report cards, and work-related permits, contracts and insurance.
Series 1, Personal Materials, 1936-1999, consists of school report cards, personal financial materials (blank checks and passbook), work-related permits, contracts, membership cards and insurance, ephemera, newspaper clippings, publications, and correspondence. The correspondence constitutes the bulk of the material and consists of handwritten and typescript letters, with some postcards, telegrams, and radio grams, written by Richard "Dick" Price to his parents, Alfred and Mary Price of New York City. Some materials are written by Mary Price and Virginia and Bob Price, sister-in-law and brother to Dick Price. Other materials in this series are addressed to Peter Haener, a friend, particularly Christmas cards from the 1990s. Price describes his ice skating performances, friendships (especially with a woman named Kim), and travels throughout Europe. Additional materials include hotel and air cargo invoices. A series of Trans World Airlines certificates issued to Mary Price, Dick Price's mother, document her travels across the Atlantic Ocean from 1953-1956. The Hawaii materials (maps, postcards, and menus) relate to a trip Price took in July 1948. Price is listed as a passenger on the S.S. Lurline.
Series 2, Programs, 1945-2002, consists of color programs and brochures for ice skating shows Price appeared in or attended. Some of the programs are autographed. Price appears on the cover of Garmisch This Week, 1955, a publication of the United States Army Leave and Rest Center. There are several programs for Holiday in Garmisch/Ice Revue for the Casa Carioca, a night club built by General George S. Patton. The club was located at the U.S. Army base in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and operated from 1945-1970. The club was an important venue for professional ice skaters. The programs are arranged alphabetically by the name of the ice skating show and then chronologically. Other programs include musical and theatrical productions that Price organized and/or produced in Austria. All of these programs are in German.
Series 3, Photographs and Scrapbook, 1940s-1990s, consists of black-and-white and color prints both in albums and loose. The majority of the photographs are black-and-white. They document Price's professional ice skating career primarily in Europe and depict both images of Price and other skaters performing. Leisure time sight-seeing and touring throughout Europe is well-documented. Many of the photographs are unidentified. The photographs are arranged chronologically. There is one scrapbook, 1948-1953, which consists of postcards, ice skating programs, newspaper and magazine articles, telegrams, Christmas cards, and hotel ephemera documenting Price's ice skating career primarily in the United States.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into three series.
Series 1, Personal Materials, 1936-1999
Series 2, Programs, 1945-2002
Series 3, Photographs and Scrapbooks, circa 1940s-1990s
Biographical / Historical:
Richard "Dick" S. Price was born on March 27, 1928 to Mary Schweitzer Price and Alfred Price. He had one brother, Robert Ira Price. He was raised in the New York City area and attended local schools (Columbia Grammar, Junior High School 165, Pratt Institute, and Parsons School of Design) as well as a brief period at the Admiral Farragut Academy, a boarding school in New Jersey. Price took skating lessons at Lake Placid, New York, circa 1934 and dance lessons in New York City as a young boy. According to Price's "memoirs" he was hired as a replacement skater for the Hollywood Ice Revue (regular skaters went on strike) and he convinced his father to sign the contract since he was underage. Price enlisted in the United States Coast Guard on March 19, 1946. He was a Seaman second class and served on the Cutter Pequot. Price was dishonorably discharged on October 17, 1946.
Price's first skating performances were with Sonja Henie's ice show company in 1947. He later performed with other companies such as Holiday on Ice and Ice Vogues. His ice skating career took off and by 1948, he was known as the "Bombshell of the Ice." Later in life he produced Las Vegas-style nightclub shows, and he translated and presented many significant Broadway musicals in the German theatre. Price died on June 5, 2005, in a senior care facility in Mondsee, Austria.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Andrea Stevens on June 17, 2010.
Restrictions:
The 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.
The rights to the published programs remain with the publishers.
Correspondence, administrative records, operational records, company newsletters, news clippings, photographs, photograph albums, and audio-visual materials.
Scope and Contents:
Series 1: History of Krisy Kreme, includes records and materials which document the history of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Company and Corporation. Included are stories about the company and its founder, Vernon Rudolph ("A Man and an Enterprise" is in booklet form while "Brief Outline of the History of Krispy Kreme" is 115 pages) and also a story about the employees and facilities of the Corporation; a report that includes the organization's history and brief biographies of the management team; and overall operating reports from 1948 and 1950. There is also information pertaining to Krispy Kreme's association with Beatrice Foods Company as well as a biography of William Lewis Rudolph, brother of Vernon. This series also contains a draft (from 1952) of a report to the Government Purchasing Agencies about Krispy Kreme's mix plant operations, comprising a detailed list of equipment, cost controls, and a chronology of Krispy Kreme store openings. These are located in a folder marked "Historical Data." There is also a folder entitled "Vernon Rudolph" which contains a photocopy of two photographs -- one is of the front of a house while the other is of a family -- and a funeral tribute, dated 1973, to Vernon Rudolph.
Series 2: Administrative Records, contains those records which deal with the overall operation of the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Company and Corporation. This series is arranged into the following subseries:
Subseries 2.1: Correspondence, contains copies of letters to and from Vernon Rudolph and vendors, banks, Krispy Kreme stores and office personnel, local organizations, government agencies. The dates range from the 1930s through 1972. There is one original letter and its accompanying envelope from 1939.
Subseries 2.2: Executive Records, contains the articles of incorporation, bylaws, minutes, and resolutions of the Board of Directors. The dates range from 1946-1977. This subseries also includes an organizational chart from the mid-1970s as well as an article of incorporation for Frozen Products, Inc., a subsidiary of the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation. There is also an Incorporation Plan from 1946 that includes a plan of organization, bills of sale, and a balance sheet. The folder marked "Miscellaneous," contains minutes from the first meeting of the incorporators in 1946 and a short note from 1952 concerning floor space at the Ivy Street plant.
Subseries 2.3: Financial Records, ca. 1940-1996, includes annual and audit reports, gross sales statements for the company and the corporation as well as for doughnut mix. This subseries also contains balance sheets, a general accounting ledger, and operating reports. In the folder "Canceled Checks," there are signed checks by Vernon Rudolph as well as a handwritten listing of expenses that is titled "Personal Bank Records." There is also a prospectus dated from 1975 which is one year before the merger with Beatrice.
Subseries 2.4: Legal Records, 1947-1982, deals mostly with trademark issues. It contains the correspondence and registration applications pertaining to trademark laws. Also included are the actual trademark registrations from all 50 states (since expired) as well as a list of expiration dates for the registrations. This subseries also contains correspondence between Krispy Kreme and Prudential Insurance Company concerning loans. There is also a folder "Miscellaneous Agreements and Contracts" that contains a lease agreement from 1957 and an accident claims agreement from 1955.
Subseries 2.5: Personnel Records, dates range from the 1950s-1985. It includes information concerning employee benefits and manuals on selling doughnuts and running doughnut machines. Female employees are provided with guidelines in both a booklet, ca. 1963, titled "Salesgirl," and a plaque from the early 1960s that instructs them on appearance, retail manner, and attitude. Also contained in this subseries are award certificates given for years of service and a photograph of service award pins, jewelry, watches, and a clock. Other certificates were those for Associates and store operators certifying that they are fully capable and properly trained to operate a Krispy Kreme store. In the "Miscellaneous" folder, there are memorandums to employees, want-ad clippings, and a thank you card from the Corporation to its employees for 50 years of success.
Subseries 2.6: Professional Associations, contains a certificate of membership into the US Chamber of Commerce, 1955.
Subseries 2.7: Stock Records, deals with the purchase and sale of stocks from 1947-1975. There are copies of two agreements -- one regarding Krispy Kreme selling an employee stocks and the other concerning Krispy Kreme buying stocks in the Pinebrook Real Estate and Development Corporation. The folder "Stockholders," contains a 1950 end of year letter to stockholders and a brief report on a court case entitled "How Not to Sell Company Stock to Key Employees" from a 1949 newsletter, "Estate and Tax Letter." There is a stockholders ledger dated 1947-1975 which also has a list of stockholders attached to one page.
Subseries 2.8: Testimonial Letters, are from customers and date from 1994-1997. In some cases, Krispy Kreme responses were attached with the original, in others they were not. All the letters are copies of the originals and are on acid-free paper.
Subseries 2.9: Miscellaneous, contains drawings and pictures of the Corporation headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC, and of exterior store signage. It also includes logo designs from the 1960s through 1989, samples of stationery, a brochure for and a photograph of the Krispy Kreme plane, and a program for the 1994 Krispy Kreme Annual Conference. There is also a folder containing Holiday greeting cards from Krispy Kreme management and a program from their 1990 Christmas party.
Series 3: Operational Records, contains those records which pertain to all aspects of the production and sale of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. This series has the following subseries:
Subseries 3.1: Advertising and Promotions, ca. 1947-1993, contains small and full page newspaper advertisements from 1947 through 1993 (including some undated advertisements), the mats and layouts that the retail stores used in their own in-store advertising, and information and correspondence concerning billboard advertising. This subseries also includes television commercial storyboards and an audience pre-test report for three of them. There is also materials on the different promotions Krispy Kreme used. The "Miscellaneous" folder contains a variety of indoor and outdoor advertisements.
Subseries 3.2: Equipment and Engineering, is itself broken down into three categories: American Gas Association (AGA), Equipment Design, and Equipment Information. The "American Gas Association" section contains correspondence between the AGA and Krispy Kreme regarding AGA inspection of and seal of approval for Krispy Kreme-made equipment. "Equipment Design" contains the notes, sketches, test results, and photographs of various pieces of equipment designed and made by Krispy Kreme. "Equipment" information includes equipment brochures and booklets and more detailed information on the use of the equipment.
Subseries 3.3: Franchises/Associates, ca. 1940s-1990s, contains literature to attract potential new franchisees as well as samples of franchise agreements. This subseries also includes photographs and press releases concerning store openings. These are located in three folders: "Grand Opening Summary," "Knoxville Grand Opening," and "Krispy Kreme Locations." There is also a videocassette that highlights Krispy Kreme's foray into New York City in 1996.
Subseries 3.4: Fundraising, includes a variety of materials that concern Krispy Kreme's program of assisting local organizations in their fundraising efforts. The dates range from the 1940s-1990s. It contains brochures, ca. 1940s-1990s, which explain the fundraising plan and its benefits. There are also guides geared towards Krispy Kreme salespersons to help them present the plan to potential clients. In the "Miscellaneous" folder, there is a newspaper advertisement from September 1988 promoting the fundraising plan. There is also a photo collage done by Krispy Kreme Fundraising Representative, Sharon Craig, to commemorate a local parade in Memphis, TN (at the Elvis Presley Boulevard plant).
Subseries 3.5: Marketing, contains a 1996 marketing standards manual and press kits from 1997. The marketing manual was directed to store operators to assist them in promoting and selling their products. The press kits were given to the Smithsonian when discussions concerning Krispy Kreme's donation to the museum began in the spring of 1997.
Subseries 3.6: Packaging, ca. 1930s-1992, contains examples of the different packaging used by Krispy Kreme to market their food products and mixes. Also included are designs for new packaging. One example is for doughnuts done by Comet Products Inc. (of MA) in 1979. Four samples of pie packaging designs were created by Pike & Cassels, Inc. (of NC) in late 1991 and early 1992. In the "Miscellaneous" folder there are examples of other Krispy Kreme packaging.
Subseries 3.7: Quality Control Laboratory, ca. 1959-1976, consists of two items. The first one, which was originally housed in a binder, is a notebook of information on lab procedures and on the chemical consistency and test concerning doughnut ingredients. This belonged to David Downs, Chief Chemist at Krispy Kreme. The second item is a "pictorial" prospectus of the entire Krispy Kreme operation -- departments, individual stores, products and packaging -- which belonged to the Laboratory.
Subseries 3.8: Sales Records, ca. 1950s-1980s, contains materials that would assist both franchise managers and operators (with in-store sales) and route salespeople (in selling wholesale Krispy Kreme products to groceries, etc). It includes a Route Book, ca. late 1950s, that contained order information and belonged to Robah G. Hendrick, a Krispy Kreme salesman. There is also a sales order pad, ca. 1950s-early 1960s, used by a Krispy Kreme store in Memphis, TN. There are also two in-house catalogs -- in folders "Posters, inserts, cards..." and "Shelf talkers catalog" -- that contain items that can be ordered by managers and that are used to sell store products. Shelf talkers are signs posted near the merchandise or on grocery display shelves. They, like the posters, inserts, cards, are used to attract customers with specials and promotions. Samples of shelf talkers are included in this subseries. There is also a "Miscellaneous" folder which contains a Krispy Kreme coupon, a book of gift certificates, another example of a shelf talker sign, and brochures of different store displays.
Subseries 3.9: Store Operations, ca. 1960s-1970s, deals primarily with items that are meant for store operators and mangers to help them in running a Krispy Kreme store. Two manuals -- Production and Extruded Doughnut manuals -- instruct managers in producing high quality products. Two other manuals -- Associates Operations and Branch Plant Managers' Manual -- discuss doughnut production, but also give directives and policies on other store issues, such as safety, sanitation, and personnel. The Branch Plant Managers' Manual also delves into the natural gas crisis in January 1977 and deals with advertising, security, and photo requests. This subseries also includes five 8"x6" laminated cards that contain doughnut recipe information and checklists of cleanup and sanitation procedures. There is also a plaque entitled "What is a Customer?" which explains to employees why a Krispy Kreme customer is so important. In the "Miscellaneous" folder there are two guides that advise on how to promote and sell items and a store/production area sign containing the store mission statement. [Also see Series 2: Administrative Records, Subseries E: Personnel, for a guide entitled "Salesgirl" which instructs the female Krispy Kreme employee on matters pertaining to dress and attitude.]
Series 4: Newsletters, 1957-1998, includes, Krispy Kreme News, Krispy Kreme Management Circle, and Hot Doughnut News.
Krispy Kreme News, 1957-1998, is geared towards all members of the Krispy Kreme community -- management, operators and managers, and employees. Its articles discuss new store openings, Corporation news, community (or news-related) events, and provides instructions and reminders concerning store upkeep and sanitation. There are sections announcing upcoming retirements, congratulating outstanding employees, and honoring long service to Krispy Kreme. Also included are articles that do not necessarily pertain to Krispy Kreme, but, rather, add a human element to the newsletters, such as humorous stories, articles on birds, and tips on highway safety. Some articles of interest are a history of chocolate (September 1963), "You Can Improve Your Memory" (May 1967), "A Communist is a Rich Marxist" (July 1967), and a discussion on skirt lengths and their relation to economics (February 1970). [In addition, there are two early issues of Krispy Kreme News (May 9 and May 15, 1951) in a folder entitled "Brief Outline of the History of Krispy Kreme, 1977" which is located in Series 1: History of Krispy Kreme.]
Also included in this subseries and relating to Krispy Kreme News are a subject index, a questionnaire form, and signed release letters.
Krispy Kreme Management Circle, 1995-1997, is a quarterly newsletter geared towards Krispy Kreme management and leadership. The articles focus on product quality, marketing and promotions, and training. At the end of each issue, there is a ranking of stores in different sales categories, i.e., average customer purchases (in dollars), highest percentages of customers buying beverages with their food or buying a second dozen doughnuts.
Hot Doughnut News, 1997, caters primarily to Krispy Kreme store operators, providing reports on stores and ideas for marketing.
Series 5: Press Clippings, 1949-1998, contains articles and stories that cover the Corporation, its history, its founder and subsequent leaders, and its community programs and promotions. The bulk of the clippings are from newspapers with a scattering of magazine articles. The largest number clippings come from the Winston-Salem Journalof Winston-Salem, NC, where Krispy Kreme is based. All articles have been copied onto acid-free paper.
Some clippings have been separated from the rest. One folder, "Davey Allison," contains clippings concerning the sudden death of this popular NASCAR driver and Krispy Kreme spokesman, in 1993. The folder titled "Ralph Simpson and Associates, July-Sept 1995" contains articles and news briefs on Krispy Kreme and its competitors collected by a Winston-Salem public relations firm. Two other folders with clippings from the Simpson PR firm concern Krispy Kreme's donation into the Smithsonian in July 1997. The contents of these two folders are not on acid-free paper. "School Computers" documents the efforts of the Krispy Kreme Corporation to help distribute computers to schools across North Carolina. The "TV Monitoring Report, July 1997" folder does not contain any clippings, but includes a listing of news stories that appeared on television about the Krispy Kreme donation to the Smithsonian.
Series 6: Photographs, ca. late 1930s through the mid 1990s, consists of black-and-white and color photographs and some negatives and transparencies. This series is divided into the following subseries:
Subseries 6.1: Corporate Staff, Associates, and Store Managers, ca. 1940s-early 1990s, is broken down into the following two categories: "Corporate Staff" and "Associates and Store Managers." Corporate Staff contains photographs of the officers of the corporation as well as members of the staff at the headquarters in Winston-Salem. Most are portrait shots with some group photos, e.g., the Board of Directors. There are also photographs of a 1974 retirement party for Mike Harding (Chairman of the Board and CEO) and Louise Joyner (editor of the Krispy Kreme News) and of a wedding cake made in 1990 for the wedding of headquarters accountant Cathy Rogers. The cake and the wedding were featured in the winter 1991 issue of Krispy Kreme News. [Also of interest are two photocopies of photographs -- of a house and a family -- located in Series 1: History of Krispy Kreme, Folder: "Vernon Rudolph."]
The Associates and Store Managers photographs consist mostly of group portraits taken at their respective annual meetings: Associate Operators' Meeting and Store Managers' Conference. Also included are scenes of store manager training, which was mandatory for all new Krispy Kreme managers.
Subseries 6.2: Corporate Headquarters, date from the late 1940s through the late 1980s. This subseries contains photographs of the General Offices, Equipment Department, Laboratory, Mix Department, and Warehouse. [Other photographs pertaining to these areas can be found in Series 6: Photographs, Subseries H: "Tour Given to Smithsonian Staff."]
The General Offices photographs include exterior and interior views of the headquarters on Ivy Avenue. The Equipment Department photographs show various pieces of doughnut equipment as well as the designing, manufacturing, and assembling of said equipment by Krispy Kreme. [For more technical information on the different equipment, please refer to Series 3: Operational Records, Subseries B: "Equipment and Engineering."]
The Quality Control Laboratory photographs consist of views that show the interior of the laboratory and of the chemists at work. There are also some images of test results of the doughnut mixes for quality and consistency. In addition, there are pictures of lab results of tests on glaze made with and without stabilizers.
The Mix Department photographs contain views of the different stages of department operations. They also show the equipment used to prepare the dry doughnut mixes, which later are sent to the Krispy Kreme stores. The Warehouse photographs show bags of Krispy Kreme prepared mixes stacked in a large warehouse at the headquarters and waiting to be shipped.
Subseries 6.3: Retail Shops and Plants, ca. 1937-1994, contains photographs of specific Krispy Kreme stores. They show the exterior and interior views of the shops including storefront, signage, retail, and production areas, as well as employees and customers. The bulk of the photos range from the 1950s through the 1970s. They are arranged by state, by city within the state, and then by street name within the city.
Subseries 6.4: General Photographs, ca. 1940s-mid 1990s, concern unspecified Krispy Kreme shops and plants. They include views of store exteriors (storefront and signage) and interiors (production and retail areas and signage). The production area photographs show the various stages of the production of doughnuts, pies, and honeybuns. There are also photographs of customers, employees, and of students participating in the Krispy Kreme fundraising plan. The employee photographs consist of general in-store action and posed shots as well as views of employees receiving service awards for years of service. The fundraising photographs show students picking up boxes of doughnuts from Krispy Kreme shops or selling those boxes in an effort to raise money.
This subseries also contains photographs of the trucks used by the Krispy Kreme stores throughout the years to deliver their products to groceries and other food stores. [A a set of press clippings that detail the use of Kripsy Kreme trucks in delivering school computers to North Carolina schools. These can be found in SERIES 5: Press Clippings, in the folder titled "School Computers, May-June 1993."]
Subseries 6.5: Trade Shows, range in date from the 1950s through 1970s. This subseries includes photographs of Krispy Kreme displays at trade shows in the United States (Atlanta and St. Louis) and in Greece, Indonesia, Japan, and Pakistan.
Subseries 6.6: Products and Packaging, ca. late 1940s-early 1990s, shows samples of various grocery store displays as well as photographs of doughnuts, fried pies, and honeybuns -- with and without packaging. There is also a folder that contains shots of Krispy Kreme coffee cups.
Subseries 6.7: Advertising and Promotions, dates from 1965-1990s. The bulk of the photographs centers around shots of Davey Allison's race car. Allison was a Krispy Kreme spokesman for their Race to Daytona Sweepstakes in 1991. The other photographs consist of views of various advertising posters used in shops and grocery stores. There are also photographs that show Krispy Kreme advertising displays in airports.
Subseries 6.8: Photo Albums, consist of six albums, all falling within the date range of the 1950s through the mid 1980s. The first album, "Exterior and Interior shots of Unspecified Retail Shops," contains photographs that date from the late 1970s-mid 1980s; these consist of exterior and interior views of various stores.
The second album, entitled "Krispy Kreme Album," dates from 1962. A Christmas gift to Vernon Rudolph from the Corporate staff and associates, it contains photographs of the individual staff members and associates as well as group shots of the associates at annual meetings. There are also photographs of various shop storefronts. This album also includes exterior and interior views of the corporate headquarters.
"Krispy Kreme Doughnut Co.," ca. 1950s-1960s, is the third album. It served as a pictorial marketing tool used to attract new associates and franchisees. It shows exterior views of the corporate headquarters, various storefronts, and views of a typical Krispy Kreme trade show display. There are also photographs showing retail doughnut production as well as images of packaging and final products. In addition, there is a price list of equipment and mixes.
The "Plant and Production" album dates from the 1960s. It consists of photographs showing the different stages of doughnut production and the preceding steps involving the equipment and mix departments and laboratory. There are also exterior views of various retail shops and of the headquarters in Winston-Salem.
The "Production Equipment Album," ca. 1960s-early 1970s, is similar to the "Krispy Kreme Doughnut Co." album with regards to the subject of the photographs. Additionally, there are photographs of the officers of the Corporation as well as images of advertising posters used in grocery stores.
The sixth album, entitled "Social Gatherings Album," dates from 1951-1971. It contains photographs of female corporate staff members at various social gatherings, such as bridal and baby showers, picnics, birthdays, and Christmas parties.
Subseries 6.9: Tour Given to Smithsonian Staff, contains photographs that were taken on May 28, 1997. The photos, taken by Smithsonian photographer Rich Strauss, depict a tour of the Corporation headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC. One highlight of interest is a view of the safe where the secret Krispy Kreme recipe is kept (located in the "Quality Control Laboratory" section of this subseries). The photographs are arranged according to the order of the tour.
Series 7: AUDIOvisual Materials, remains unprocessed as of the date of this finding aid. This series consists of training films, videotapes, TV and radio commercials, and slide presentations. A rough inventory of these materials is provided in the container list.
Biographical / Historical:
The Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation started with a recipe, a Pontiac, a pack of cigarettes, and a dream. Add in hard work and a commitment to quality and consistency and what emerges is a company that is at the top of its field and beloved by its customers. It is an organization that has been innovative over the years, but has also remained true to its belief in making top quality products and ensuring excellent customer service. All of this has made Krispy Kreme doughnuts and its company a Southern icon.
The story of Krispy Kreme is the story of one man: Vernon Rudolph. Vernon Rudolph opened his first Krispy Kreme shop in the 1930s and from there built a corporation which he led until his death in the early 1970s. There is another part of the story and that is the continuation of the dream by Joseph McAleer. It was after some years under corporate food giant, Beatrice Foods, that McAleer, beginning in 1982, steered Krispy Kreme back to its traditional emphasis on excellent doughnuts as well as on a family atmosphere within the entire corporation.
The story begins on June 30, 1915 in Marshall County, Kentucky with the birth of Vernon Carver Rudolph. He was the eldest son of Rethie Nimmo Rudolph (mother) and Plumie Harrison Rudolph (father) and had a strict, but loving, upbringing. Vernon Rudolph did well in school, both academically and athletically. He also found time to work in his father's general store as well as helping his neighbors with odd jobs.
After graduating from high school, Rudolph then began his life's work when he went to work for his uncle, Ishmael Armstrong. It seems Armstrong bought a doughnut shop -- along with the assets, name, and recipe -- from a Frenchman from New Orleans, Joe LeBeau. So in 1933, Rudolph began selling the yeast-based doughnuts door to door for the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop in Paducah, Kentucky. Not only did Rudolph sell doughnuts, he took part in producing them, thereby giving him an all-around experience in the doughnut business.
The economic depression that rocked the country also affected the shop. Armstrong decided to move from Paducah to the much bigger Nashville, Tennessee, hoping that business would be better there. Vernon Rudolph went with him to the new location, hoping for the same. But after trying, Armstrong, in 1935, decided to sell the shop and return to Kentucky. Rudolph wanted to buy it, but unfortunately did not have the money. However, his father -- whose general store had closed and who was working for the doughnut shop as a salesman -- stepped in. He borrowed the money and soon after Krispy Kreme was operating under new ownership. It was also at this time that one of Rudolph's younger brothers, Lewis, joined the family business.
The shop was doing well, enough so that in 1936 Rudolph's father opened another shop in Charleston, West Virginia. Awhile later, a third shop opened in Atlanta, Georgia. While this growth was occurring, Vernon Rudolph still wanted to own his own Krispy Kreme store. In the summer of 1937, he left Nashville with two friends in their new 1936 Pontiac and $200. Carrying start-up doughnut equipment the three young men set out towards an unknown destination, but with a known dream.
Louise Skillman Joyner, Krispy Kreme News editor, recounts how Rudolph and his friends settled on Winston-Salem, North Carolina as the location for their shop.
After some disappointments in looking for a suitable location, Vernon Rudolph, standing on a street corner in Peoria, [Illinois], one evening, wondered what the next move should be. Rents were quite high in that section of the country and the trio was running out of money. He took a pack of Camel cigarettes from his pocket and noticed that they were manufactured in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Why not Winston-Salem?" he thought, "A town with a company producing a nationally advertised product has to be a good bet." So off across the mountains to North Carolina they went.
With only $25 left, they arrived in Winston-Salem. Using that money to rent a space on Main Street and then getting the ingredients and some equipment on credit (which they paid back promptly), the three men began making yeast doughnuts. That day was July 13, 1937. Vernon Rudolph believed in producing only doughnuts of high quality and those were the only ones that were ever sold. That belief (as well as the mouth-watering doughnuts) endeared them to the people of Winston-Salem. What also caught their eye (and their taste buds) was the doughnut production that occurred in the store's front window and the free samples given away in the evenings.
Krispy Kreme at this time was primarily a wholesale enterprise. Using trucks to deliver the products, Rudolph was able to sell doughnuts throughout the area. But soon the wonderful aroma that came from the shop caused passersby to ask for doughnuts right there on the spot. This led to the beginning of Krispy Kreme's retail operations.
In the midst of all this, Rudolph met and married an Atlanta woman, Ruth Ayers, in 1939. This family increased by one in 1943 when the Rudolphs adopted a baby girl, whom they named Patricia Ann. Sadly, Ruth Ayers Rudolph was killed in an automobile accident in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1944.
The number of Krispy Kreme stores continued to grow in the years that followed. But instead of Rudolph owning all of them outright, he entered into partnerships or into associate (franchise) relationships. The arrangements gave the operators of these particular shops that use of the Krispy Kreme name, recipe, and later the ingredients. But more importantly, they had to agree to adhere to the Krispy Kreme philosophy of producing only the highest quality doughnuts. In those early years, the business was truly family-oriented. This atmosphere continued with these associate owners.
In 1946, Rudolph began thinking about consolidating all the Krispy Kreme resources together under a corporation. This umbrella, he believed, would enable Krispy Kreme to grow further and also give the shops a sense of uniformity. So on October 1, 1946 a corporation named the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Company was formed. Less than a year later, on June 3, 1947, a new corporation, the Krispy Kreme Corporation, was incorporated. The Company concerned itself with individual store operations, while the corporation took care of producing dry mixes used by the shops. Vernon Rudolph served as President and Chairman of the Board.
It was also in 1946 that Rudolph married again -- to Lorraine Flynt of Winston-Salem. Their family of three grew over the years to include Vernon Carver Jr., Sanford, Curtis, and Beverly.
The formation of the corporation was followed by the creation of three important departments within Krispy Kreme: the Mix Department, the Laboratory, and the Equipment Department. Each had an essential role in the overall success of the company. The Mix Department has grown since its creation in 1948. Its primary mission: to mix, in bulk, the key ingredients needed by the shops to make doughnuts -- both yeast- and cake-doughnuts -- but also newly added products -- fried pies and honeybuns. By providing these mixes, Krispy Kreme was able to ensure that all stores made the same excellent products.
The Laboratory was created in 1949. Vernon Rudolph's beliefs in top quality and uniformity were put in action. The Laboratory tested ingredients that were in the prepared mixes and experimented with others to see if perhaps a new ingredient would make a great product better.
Rudolph started the Equipment Department because Krispy Kreme's main supplier of yeast doughnut machines, the Doughnut Corporation of America, decided to enter the retail doughnut business itself. So with the help of consultants and staffed with engineers and machinists, the Equipment Department began manufacturing its own equipment in 1949.
The push towards automation that swept the nation also affected Krispy Kreme. One piece of equipment that illustrates this is the Ring King Junior. Designed for cake doughnut production and taking up only seven square feet, the Ring King Junior cut, fried, turned, and cooled about 30 to 75 dozen per hour. How different from the early days of Krispy Kreme when everything had to be done by hand -- measuring, cutting, frying. The Ring King not only saved space and time, but also ingredients used. And it gave a uniformity to the doughnuts produced -- something Vernon Rudolph liked very much.
Over the years, Krispy Kreme has followed a philosophy of excellent quality and customer service. It recognizes the importance of the customer -- because without him or her there would be no reason to be in business. Along with giving their customers the best, getting involved in the community is another way Krispy Kreme has endeared itself to them. They do this by primarily helping area schools raise money for equipment, uniforms, trips, etc. In order to accomplish its goals, the company needs hard-working and dependable people. Krispy Kreme recognizes the value of its employees. The family atmosphere of those early days has continued.
Vernon Rudolph believed in that philosophy and always strove to make Krispy Kreme the best in the doughnut business. His death on August 16, 1973, left a large void and the years immediately afterwards were tough. Then, in 1976, Krispy Kreme merged with corporate giant Beatrice Foods Company of Chicago. It was still headquartered in Winston-Salem and continued its operations, but as a subsidiary.
For Beatrice, showing a profit was extremely important. To help its Krispy Kreme division, Beatrice encouraged additions to the menu and substitutions of ingredients in the doughnut mixes. This did not appeal to long-time Krispy Kreme associates, but unfortunately there was not much that could be done at that time.
Beatrice's association with Krispy Kreme was not as profitable as it had hoped it would be. So in 1981, the food corporation decided to sell its subsidiary. One Krispy Kreme associate saw this as an opportunity to bring the doughnut company back to the basic traditions upon which it had built a successful enterprise. The associate, Joseph A. McAleer, Sr., had been with the company for almost thirty years when this situation arose. An Alabama native, he went to work for the company in 1951 after he saw an advertisement in the Mobile Press Register for qualified people to join a profitable organization -- the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation. After meeting with Vernon Rudolph, McAleer worked at the Pensacola, Florida store for $1 per hour in order to learn all aspects of a shop's operations. Rudolph had initially wanted McAleer to work for no pay, but with a family to care for, McAleer could not do this and so the $1 an hour agreement was arranged.
McAleer worked 120 hour weeks for over a year. This experience enabled him, in 1953, to start a shop of his own, in Pritchard, Alabama, a suburb of Mobile. His first effort there was not a success -- due to a poor location. He opened another shop in 1956 -- this time off of a busy street in Mobile -- and this time was successful. Over the next 17 years, McAleer opened up other Krispy Kreme shops in Alabama and Mississippi and all promised to provide the highest quality product and the best service. And continuing the family-oriented tradition, members of his immediate family worked in the different shops.
The death of Vernon Rudolph and Beatrice's purchase of Krispy Kreme seemed to send the doughnut company in a new direction -- one not everyone, including McAleer, liked. When Beatrice wanted to sell Krispy Kreme, McAleer talked with his fellow associates and those with ties to the company -- people, like him, who had a stake in Krispy Kreme's success -- and through his efforts was able to form a group of investors. In 1982, the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation had new owners.
These new owners, though, saw Krispy Kreme as a specialty-type of operation with a certain uniqueness and familial closeness and one which needed to concentrate on its basic foundation. That is, going to back to Vernon Rudolph's philosophy of top quality and top service as well as focusing on people, both customers and employees. They are beliefs and values that have proven successful and have helped Krispy Kreme grow from a small doughnut shop in Winston-Salem to a large corporation that still makes the same much-loved doughnut.
Related Materials:
There is a folder of duplicate Krispy Kreme material in Archives Center collection #439, the Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera. The Archives Center also contains collection #662, two scrapbooks from the Doughnut Corporation of America. Artifacts donated by the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation to the National Museum of American History are located in the Division of Cultural History and the Division of the History of Technology.
Provenance:
This collection was donated to the National Museum of American History, Archives Center on July 17, 1997, by the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation. Additional items were donated on July 17, 1997, by V. Carver Rudolph and on August 6, 1997, by Steve Cochran.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
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.
Periodical articles, news clippings, concert programs, radio transcripts, personal correspondence, broadsides, photographs, and pencil sketches collected by Dr. Shell. The material documents part of Duke Ellington's music career, especially ca. 1940-1974.
Scope and Contents:
The Dr. Theodore Shell Collection of Duke Ellington Ephemera contains autographs, concert programs, publicity booklets, conference materials, correspondence, periodicals, news clippings, photographs, play lists, transcripts of radio broadcasts and a variety of other ephemeral materials that document the life, career, and legacy of Duke Ellington, as well as the early history of Jazz. The collection is arranged alphabetically. Oversized materials are located at the end of the collection but are listed alphabetically within the container list.
Items of particular interest include: a collection of programs, napkins, and menus autographed by Duke Ellington and other members of his orchestra including Johnny Hodges; concert programs spanning forty years of Ellington's career (1933-1973); a pencil-sketched portrait of Duke Ellington; and photographs of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, "Peg leg" Bates, Cat Anderson, Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, Harold Ashby, Russell Procope and many other Ellington band members taken or collected by Dr. Shell. There are radio broadcast transcripts that contain the scripts, play lists, and promotional spots from various Ellington radio performances between 1943 and 1946. Biographical notes document the life of one of Ellington's public relations agents, Jerome O. Rhea, and there are also some photographs that might possibly be of Rhea's family. Also of interest are a transcript of a meeting related to the organization of a Negro Baseball League and several hand-illustrated poems by African American poets, both of which are found in the Miscellaneous folder.
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Theodore Shell (1915- ), dentist, "amateur" photographer and Ellington enthusiast, was born in Rahweh, New Jersey. He graduated from Shaw University in 1937 with a degree in science and chemistry, and he served five years in the U.S. Army's chemical warfare service during World War II in the European Theatre. In 1950 he received his dentistry degree from Howard University and began a practice in Washington D.C. Dr. Shell also held the position of Clinical Professor of Dentistry for 43 years at Howard. He retired in 1993.
Dr. Shell first became interested in Ellington's music in 1952. He and Maurice Lawrence, a fellow member of the Omega Psi Phi National Fraternity, founded a Duke Ellington Club in 1956, and it eventually became Chapter 90 of the Ellington Society by 1962. Other founding members of this chapter include Grant Wright, Terrell Allen, and Juanita Jackson. Over the course of his activities with the Ellington Society, Dr. Shell had the privilege of meeting with Duke Ellington on numerous occasions, the first time being in 1964, and in 1971 he hosted Ellington's 72nd birthday party in his own home. Currently, Dr. Shell is serving as president of the organization.
Provenance:
Dr. Theodore Shell donated his collection of Duke Ellington ephemera to the National Museum of American History on November 17, 1993.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Copyright restrictions. Contact the Archives Center.
Topic:
Jazz musicians -- 1940-1980 -- United States Search this
Scrapbook compiled by Lee, documenting her time as a student at the Fairmont Seminary in Washington, D.C. in the 1910s. The scrapbook mostly documents the social lives of Lee and other students at the school, especially the dances, sporting events, graduations and other activities at the U.S. Naval Academy. The contents of the scrapbook include a huge variety of types of documents, including letters, postcards, greeting cards and telegrams; photographs of students and their activities; drawings and paintings by Lee; report cards; menus; tickets to events; dance cards; calling cards; and a large number of artifacts (ribbons, cloth flowers, insignias, etc.) are also attached to the pages of the album.
Arrangement:
Collection is unarranged.
Biographical / Historical:
The Fairmont Seminary was more customarily known as the Bristol School, named in 1904 for its founder, Alice A. Bristol. It was an Episcopal school for girls, offering two years worth of college work preparatory to college. It was located in Northwest Washington, and ceased operation in the 1940s.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center in 2017 by Carol Jarvis, who acquired it from a family member, who acquired it from a thrift store.
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.
Collection includes press clippings, awards, honorary degrees, and photographs of Ramsey Lewis Jr., renowned jazz pianist. The majority of the collection is press clippings relating to Lewis's social appearances, performances, and CD releases from the early 1990s-2007.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the life and career of Ramsey Lewis Jr., famous jazz pianist, and later, host of a popular syndicated radio talk show and television program. Though the majority of the collection consists of press clippings relating to Lewis's social appearances, performances, and CD releases from the early 1990s to the present, it also includes photographs from his early life and career, as well as selected correspondence tied heavily to events mentioned in the press clippings and a very small amount of personal materials. The collection contains programs and menus from social and fundraising galas, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, photographs, slides, awards, honorary degrees and diplomas, and a medal. Those interested in Ramsey Lewis, as well as the social scene of Chicago in the 1990s, will find this collection useful.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into five series.
Series 1, Professional Materials, 1993-2007, undated
Series 2, Personal Materials, 1950-1994, undated
Series 3, Awards, Honors, and Honorary Degrees, 1989-2009, undated
Series 4, Photographic Materials, 1945-2007, undated
Series 5, Scrapbooks, 1972-1982, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis Jr., an American jazz composer and pianist, was born in Chicago, Illinois to Ramsey Lewis Sr. and Pauline Lewis on May 27, 1935. His musical training began at the age of four with piano lessons. Lewis has achieved much success as a musician, as well as, a radio and television talk show host. In addition, he has organized and served for a number of educational programs in an effort to promote jazz. He has received recognition and numerous awards for his work.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
John and Devra Hall Levy Papers, NMAH.AC.1221
W. Royal Stokes Collection, of Music Publicity Photoprints, Interviews and Posters, NMAH.AC.0766
Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program Collection, NMAH.AC.0808
Pat and Chuck Bress Jazz Portrait Photographs, NMAH.AC.1219
Frank Schiffman Apollo Theatre Collection, NMAH.AC.0540
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Ramsey Lewis Jr. in March 2008.
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 primarily consists of photographs and a scrapbook documenting Joseph Bruhl's experiences playing with territory bands from the early 1920s through the late 1930s. There are also some materials that relate to his personal life.
Scope and Contents note:
This collection is organized into two series. Series One contains personal papers, and Series Two contains scrapbooks. Bruhl's personal papers consist of official documents, such as his high school diploma, United States Armed Services discharge notice, a notarized certification of birth, and the Bruhls' death certificates. Other personal papers include his correspondence, his writings, publicity materials promoting him, and photographs of Bruhl pictured in various stages of his long career. The scrapbook series includes two scrapbooks, one featuring Bruhl's wedding and honeymoon, and the second, larger book documenting Bruhl's travels as a territory band musician.
Bruhl's wedding scrapbook contains records of his 1929 marriage to Vera Bruhl, née Halsted. The scrapbook also includes photographs, postcards and brochures from their honeymoon, as well as several letters and telegrams of congratulation from the Bruhls' family and friends.
Bruhl's territory band scrapbook contains numerous photographs dating to the 1920s and 1930s, including many captioned snapshots of small-town main streets, roadways and local attractions as well as of the musicians and their friends. Accompanying these photographs in the scrapbook are performance billings and posters, letters of recommendation, newspaper clippings, women's dance cards, association and labor union cards, business cards, menus, and radio broadcast schedules. Items appear in the scrapbook roughly chronologically and were grouped and annotated by Bruhl, reflecting his membership in a series of territory bands.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series.
Series 1: Personal Papers, 1922-1980, undated
Series 2: Scrapbooks, 1925-1938, undated
Biographical/Historical note:
Joseph Robert Bruhl (December 7, 1909-October 11, 1980) was born in Plattsmouth, Nebraska and attended Mitchell High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. From the time of his first engagement to play piano at local radio station WMAH at the age of twelve, Joseph Bruhl immersed himself in music. Bruhl played in local bands, and after two years in college decided to become a professional musician. Proficient with the banjo, guitar, and piano, Bruhl traveled from the mid-1920s until the late-1930s with what were then popularly known as "territory bands." Such bands journeyed to various locales within a fixed geographic range to play for local events. Bruhl's early engagements spanned Nebraska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, where he accompanied a series of traveling orchestras to play in ballrooms, theaters, and at other local celebrations. Such travels required long trips over unpaved roads and necessitated the acquisition of transfer passes from the Lincoln chapter of the American Federation of Musicians (Local # 463), of which Bruhl was a member. From the beginning of his career as a full-time musician, Bruhl avidly collected and preserved performance billings and other memorabilia from his travels.
From 1927 on, Bruhl's performances reached listeners across the West and Midwest on several early radio stations, including WNAX, WOW, KGHL, KFAB, and KFSO. In 1929, Bruhl married Vera Halsted, while he continued to build his career as a musician traveling with various bands. Stints playing with orchestras led by Russ Henegar and Milt Askew in the late 1920s and early 1930s preceded Bruhl's 1934 move to the San Francisco Bay area. From there he assumed his most prominent role as the piano player in Joaquin Grill's Orchestra (1935-1939). With Grill and company, Bruhl traveled even more widely, reaching as far as Lake Tahoe and several southwestern states in 1937 and 1938.
Drafted during World War II, Bruhl became the leader of an Army band unit. After the war, he returned to broadcast radio. Bruhl eventually settled in San Leandro, California, where he opened and operated a successful Fender franchise guitar school and music store in the 1950s and 1960s.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera NMAH.AC.0253
Helen May Butler Collection NMAH.AC.0261
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm Collection NMAH.AC.1218
Virgil Whyte's "All-Girl" Band CollectionNMAH.AC.0503
Henry S. Bukowski Big Band Collection NMAH.AC.0678
Jazz and Big Band Collection NMAH.AC.1388
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center in 2004 by Joseph Bruhl's nephew George M. Bruhl.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
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.
Collection consists of miscellaneous late nineteenth/early twentieth century scrapbooks containing postcards, trade cards, greeting cards, decals, and other ephemera.
Scope and Contents note:
Miscellaneous late nineteenth/early twentieth century scrapbooks containing postcards, trade cards, greeting cards, decals, and other ephemera. Included are: (1) trade cards for thread, tobacco, barbers, sewing machines, toiletries and shaving products, tobacco, undertakers and patent medicine; (2) images of women, children, pets, and flowers; (3) greeting cards celebrating Christmas, birthdays, Halloween, and St. Patrick's Day; and (4) postcards from the United States and around the world. Some of the items in the scrapbooks are comical or picturesque. Most of the scrapbooks were created by women. Also included are several twentieth century diaries, including two travel diaries written by women.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into one series.
Provenance:
Scrapbook donated by Mike Blakeslee on September 19, 1997. The collection continues to add accruals.
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.
2.8 Cubic feet (consisting of 6 boxes , 1 folder, 4 oversize folders, plus digital images of some collection material. )
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Menus
Date:
1852-1965
Summary:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Accounting and Bookkeeping forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
Menus consists of approximately 700 menus from restaurants, principally within the United States. The material dates from 1852 to 1963, with the bulk of the material from 1880s to the 1920s. Most menus are from dining establishments and includes day-to-day fare and pricing, plus some special menus. Some are standard issued menus, others are souvenir menus. Prix fixe and a la carte menus are both present. A number of the menus are from railway and shipboard travel. Special event menus often contain additional details or listings of persons honored or attending, with some including background information. Menus are predominantly paper, but a few examples are printed on textiles or wood and a couple are leather bound. Menus may have decorative covers; some are embossed, hand-painted or decorated with ribbon or gilt. There are a few menus printed on satin ribbon. Menus from ships, railroads and the Christmas menus from the United States Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts offer good examples of decorative covers.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into six subseries.
Blank Menus
Events and Celebrations
Holidays
In Transit, Travel-Based
Location
Named Honoree
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Menus is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
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.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Menus, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
