March 2009 Archives

Ileana

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Our tour season is certainly under way here in the Los Angeles museum. Every year, February through June is the time when most schools decide to come visit us. Something that came to mind recently, as I was doing one of my 4th grade tours, is how much things have really changed for women in the last 150 years, and how truly glad I am to be living in this century!

It came about as I was telling my students the story of Charlie Parkhurst.  Charlie was a renowned and skilled stage driver in his day — one of the best. He drove for almost 20 years here in California. He was short, slim, and kind of quiet, perhaps because of his high-pitched voice. When Charlie passed away and they were preparing his body for burial, they realized he had kept a huge secret his whole life.

To what that secret was, there are some very entertaining guesses from creative 4th graders:

"He was a robot?" 
"He was actually a thief?"
"He had a golden eye?" 

Someone always hits the bulls-eye: "He was a girl?"

Yes.

Her name was Charlotte. Of course, the reaction to this is usually a roomful of laughing kids. So what strikes me is how silly it seems to a child today that a woman should have to live as something she’s not.

And why? So we come upon a "vocab" word: discrimination. Despite the Delia Rawsons and Mary Fieldses  of those days, women were not readily hired by stage lines to be drivers. Women did not have the same rights or privileges  as men in the 19th century, or before. This is something we adults recognize, but it's a pretty new idea for these children.

What's interesting to me is how, as recently as 50 years ago , a 4th grade girl would have seen her world  in a very different light than one of my 4th grade girls today, who laughs at the thought of having to dress up as a man in order to do what you want to do in life. In order to be treated the same. In order to vote, as Charlie did in 1868.

And I wonder: Would I have had the courage to be a "Charlie?" Would you have seen a short, slim, quiet museum curator with a secret around 150 years ago?

Well, I'm glad that I — and these 4th grade girls — won't have to make a decision like that!

Charles

This weekend, an environmental observance begun in 2005 continues. Earth Hour  happens on Saturday night, March 28, at 8:30 p.m. your time. (For more, take a look at the Earth Hour website. ) At that time, for an hour, we all turn off all the lights.

Earth Hour was created by the World Wide Fund for Nature  (WWF ) to bring attention to the need for action on climate change. In 2007 and 2008, millions of households and businesses participated. Wells Fargo is a big ol' sponsor.

This year promises to be as big. Indeed, there is a blog  set up to record people's experiences as they occur. Send in your own story — you can comment here too! — and check back with the blog to see what the world has to say about its experience.

Saturday night, turn on to the event that turns off the lights. Get involved!

Sue

After spending the last 20 years working in Wachovia's corporate archives, it shouldn't surprise me when I come across historical milestone gems while researching totally unrelated topics. It happened again last week. I probably wouldn't have even noticed this particular 1958 oral history, but since March is Women's History Month, it caught my eye.

Miss Jay Spencer Knapp had no idea just how far ahead of her time she was when she became Atlanta's first female bank officer in 1921. She had come to work for the Lowry National Bank  — a predecessor bank of First Atlanta, and subsequently Wachovia  — in 1904.

Her position was to be the secretary and stenographer for all bank officers at Lowry, including its founder and president, Colonel Robert Lowry. She recalled that "Colonel Lowry was not very interested in letter writing as he was an active man in his early years. Even in his late years, he preferred talking to customers and making contacts to sitting at his desk and handling office routine.";

Miss Knapp handled all banking done by mail, and prepared all of the cashier's checks. At that time, the officers' desks were along the rail that separated the office space from the banking room floor. Her desk was in the middle of this group so she was able to watch the everyday flow of business and take notes when the officers consulted with each other.

Later Miss Knapp became Mr. H. Warner Martin's personal secretary when he became vice president. She remembered that "Mr. Martin was a very quiet and retiring man and not much of a mixer or sociable being. He was very serious about his banking."; Martin had risen through the ranks and became president in 1921.

On the evening before the annual directors meeting in January 1921, Mr. Martin paid Miss Knapp a visit. He told her he was going to nominate her the next day for an officer's post in the bank. Miss Knapp told him if he thought she was qualified to be an assistant cashier, she would be proud to have the job.

She had worked closely with many bankers for years and remembered with pride the letters that flowed in from bankers across the country congratulating her on her election.

Just two years after her election as a bank officer, she became the vice president for the Southern Region in the Association of Bank Women. 

In 1928, Miss Knapp's uncle, who lived in Paris, invited her to visit. She decided that 25 years in the banking business had been long enough. She turned in her letter of resignation, effective March 30, 1929. She reflected on her banking career with a great deal of fondness, recalling her years working in the bank as "a very good connection which was the source of many of my lasting friendships."

We are very proud of the career accomplishments of Miss Jay Spencer Knapp. She was certainly among a very elite group of career women 88 years ago!

Charles

Rachelle Stewart works in Southern California for Wells Fargo, helping Team members develop their customer service skills. Rachelle is also a United States Marine. I asked Rachelle to give us a personal history that contributes to GBH's recognition of Women's History Month. Rachelle is a great banker and a great American, as her story reveals. But her story also demonstrates that one person doesn't just watch history roll past — she actively creates it. (CR)

As a proud United States Marine  and also a dedicated Wells Fargo team member, I was excited to learn of our company's commitment to honoring Women's History Month.

I enlisted at the young age of 17. As a former pageant queen and cheerleader of a small Southern town in east Tennessee, I entered into service to our country and continued that journey for 8 years, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant. During my years of service from 1998-2006, I supported numerous training exercises in North America, Australia, Denmark, Norway, and Japan. My occupational specialty was Aircraft Maintenance for rotary and fixed wing.

While serving, I was very fortunate to receive the Montgomery G.I. Bill , along with academic scholarships, and complete my Bachelor's degree in Clinical Psychology  with an emphasis on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to combat , from Middle Tennessee State University  in 2002. I was activated from the Reserves after 9/11, to support Operation Enduring Freedom  and Operation Iraqi Freedom  from coast to coast across the United States. Had it not been for an unexpected diagnosis of a chronic heart condition, I would still be in the fight for democracy and protection of the American way of life.

The Marine Corps is known as "The Few, The Proud."  Just how few women Marines there are may not be quite as well known. Females make up only 6% of the entire fleet. That is approximately 11,500 women contributing to the overall strength of what has become known as "America's 911," the United States Marine Corps. As the only branch of service to segregate by gender during boot camp, the Corps establishes the foundation of the core values — Honor, Courage, and Commitment  — while maintaining equality among all Marines. Women are forged into leaders, disciplined in the traditions of 234 years of God, Corps, and Country and remain Semper Fidelis  (Latin for "Always Faithful," the Marine Corps motto) to our mission and purpose.

Terms like "Devil Dog,"  "Leatherneck"  and "Jarhead"  are just as endearing to us females as to our male counterparts, because those names must be earned. Honor causes women Marines to hold themselves to the highest standards of excellence, ethically and morally. We define courage as the ability to face and overcome fear. It will steady you in times of stress, carry you through every challenge and aid you when facing the unknown. A spirit of determination and dedication is the commitment one finds in every female Marine. It is what compels her to serve and to seek excellence in everything she does.

These are the attributes I brought with me to Wells Fargo nearly 5 years ago while still serving in the Corps, then as a Reservist. I came to our company with a desire to exceed expectations and share my leadership abilities within a prosperous and highly developed organization that is deeply rooted in its history....

Terry Keir

In the nineteenth century, the sight of galloping horses pulling a stagecoach brought people to Wells Fargo for mail, packages, and news. Today the sight of two large, white horses in front of a stagecoach brings people — especially children — into the Wells Fargo History Museum in Minneapolis.

Located on the skyway level of the Wells Fargo building in Minneapolis , people walk past the museum every day. But since last December, the two horses keep catching people's attention and drawing them inside — both children and adults want to look at and touch them.

Seems everyone's fascinated by our large stuffed animals.

These large plush ponies have been petted and hugged. There are requests to sit on them ( not allowed — sorry!). The horses have been featured in many photographs over the past few months — people love having their picture taken with the horses. They attract many visitors to the museum, and though some only come in to see how soft the horses are or to take a picture with them, many stay longer to experience the rest of the museum.

There is also one interesting response from many children. As they pat the horses, it's fairly common for children to insert a finger in one of the horse's nostrils.

One day, we were commenting on this phenomenon and wondering what the kids were looking for as they "picked" the horse's nose. We thought it might be amusing to place something in a horse's nostril, and see how long it would take a visiting child to discover it . So we hid a Wells Fargo "gold" coin in a nostril one evening and wondered when it would be found.

Amazingly, the first child that came in the next morning went over to the horses, patted one's nose — and stuck her finger up the nostril containing the coin! It was quite funny, but the look of amazement on the little girl's face was the highlight of the day.

Our ponies are wonderful ambassadors for Wells Fargo. Perhaps they also contributed to Twin Cities Metro Magazine's Skyway Guide naming the Wells Fargo History Museum as "Best Place to Take the Kids." We won by a nose!

Trudy

You will know my age when I reveal that the song "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,"  flower power  and the Women's Liberation movement   were big news when I was in college. Women were demanding more career options, and the great push to "have it all" was driving 1950s-era stereotypes to the curb.

My generation may tend to think that it broke the glass ceiling  for women, but in reality, the ceiling was at least cracked, decades before us. There were women — and men — who truly got it: We all can make invaluable contributions when provided the opportunity. Wachovia took this progressive viewpoint in an October 1909 issue of its magazine, The Solicitor:

The old story that the place for women is at home, or that they should be queens of households, is an insult to the progress and to the new social age...The absurdity of such an idea is sufficient to cause an acute attack of indigestion.

There is no phase of work or profession that woman has entered today that she has not blessed mankind and raised its standard of conduct...By this office work ladies become more self-reliant, self-supporting, and self-respecting. How supremely more gracious it is to see a lady performing proficiently the work of the bookkeeper or stenographer in a business office, than it is to see her wedged into a "H.M.T." buggy, or hanging on the arm of a moral shark in the ballroom, or fondling a poodle dog or a bull pup with a blue ribbon waving from its tail.

The idler, male or female, is out of place in this age of activity and equal rights. The business woman is by no means the cold, heartless being that a few effeminate men would have you believe she is. She knows a tax receipt from a bank note, a man from a suit of clothes, and a business proposition from a ‘gold-brick' scheme, whether it be in matrimony or barter.

Another astute writer noted in a March 1910 issue that "It often happens that a thrifty woman, unknown to other members of her household, will manage to save a dollar here and there, where a man could not, and many a family has been tided over periods of misfortune by this foresight of a wife or mother."

Sue's post last month described the Ladies Room at Wachovia, where women were encouraged to do their banking in an area set aside just for them. Wachovia knew that women held the purse strings in many homes-- if they were not working themselves. The bank sought them as customers long before they received the right to vote in 1920. 

John Watlington, CEO of Wachovia from 1956 to 1976, oversaw a dramatic increase in the number of female employees in management, policy development and officer positions. Mr. Watlington used to tell a story about Miss Cora Hart, who was the lone woman bookkeeper when he joined Wachovia in 1933. The head of the department had returned from the First World War and found, to his dismay, several women working in his department. He managed to get rid of all of them — except Miss Cora. According to Mr. Watlington, "she was as tough as he was, so she stuck it out."

By 1999, women accounted for 75 percent of Wachovia's work force and were represented at all levels of the company. 52 percent of the bank's officers were women and 151 females were in positions of senior vice president or above.

Clearly, Wachovia appreciated the contributions women made long before the dawning of the Age of Aquarius! 

Charles

At the age of 14, Delia Hackett Rawson was the first — and perhaps the youngest — girl stage driver ever to carry the U.S. mail in California. She drove for her father's stage line on the hilly route from Ukiah to Lakeport, California. Delia Rawson's last regular run was in 1885, some 9 years after her first stage run.

What we know of Delia Rawson comes from a passage in some long-forgotten, unidentified newspaper article. We learned she delighted Mendocino County concertgoers with her singing talent. Delia was also the only woman to ever belong to the Pioneer Stage Drivers of California, and she served as its vice president. Eventually she moved to Southern California to grow oranges.

Delia Rawson was never specifically employed by Wells Fargo — that we know, anyway. She drove a stagecoach for a line that carried Wells Fargo & Co's Express, something most stagecoaches did after the era when Wells Fargo owned stagecoaches. In a nutshell, Wells Fargo had a vast stagecoach empire across the West from 1858 through the 1860s, but divested ownership of these coaches and routes. Wells Fargo then contracted with railroads and independently-owned stagecoach lines to continue carrying its express. Delia Rawson drove for one of these independently owned stagecoach lines.

By this account, Delia Rawson was talented and energetic. She lived her life and made her own history — part of which intersected with Wells Fargo's history. We won't try to take credit for her greatness, but we do thank her for sharing some of that greatness with us for a while.

Charles

March is Women's History Month , which Wells Fargo celebrates. We are proud of contributions women have made throughout our history.

Henry Wells established Wells College for women in upstate New York in 1869. "Give her the opportunity!" he said, and the company he founded did. Wells Fargo's first female agent, in 1873, was Mary Taggart in Palmyra, Nebraska. Between 1873 and 1918, Wells Fargo hired over three hundred fifty women as agents, a respected position in the community.

Many of Wells Fargo's female agents in the field wore other hats as well — railroad agent , telegraph operator , business owner. Cassie Hill held three jobs in Roseville, California, from 1884 to 1907: Wells Fargo Agent, railroad agent, and telegrapher at the busy rail junction. All the while, Hill raised five children on her own. Frances Evelyn Marum ran the Wells Fargo office in Hillside, Arizona, and also owned a general store. Customers sometimes tendered goats to pay their bills. Business was good enough that Agent Marum's herd numbered more than 5,000.

Hundreds more women worked at Wells Fargo's headquarters as auditors, clerks, advertising copywriters, stenographers and telephone operators. In 1889, Wells Fargo replaced a number of young male clerks with young women, who proved themselves more diligent.

"The change was made," a San Francisco newspaper reported, "because the young men...indulged in too much fun, disturbing the expert accountants employed with them. One of the officials has intimated that the change has proved so satisfactory that a similar trial will be made in some of the other departments."

Today, about two-thirds of Wells Fargo Bank's employees are female.

Bob

Riding a stagecoach was an experience, whether going West overland, or just getting around locally, back East. One traveler was going 70 miles from Rome, Georgia , to Blue Mountain, Alabama, near Anniston.  His destination, through the Appalachian Mountains , was the railhead of the Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad.  After the trip, he concluded, "This was the most fantastic travelling of all my experience but I contrived to extract considerable from it that was 'funny.'"

We can chuckle along with his daughter, to whom he wrote:

Jan.19, 1868. Dear Lyra; I will write you my experience riding in a Stage from Rome Ga. to Blue Mountain, Alabama. We had a very dilapidated old creaking Stage coach loaded down ...

At each farm house as we came along in the afternoon we found somebody out in the road with a lot of chickens with their legs tied together in bunches of about six, and a basket of eggs, or a pail of butter for sale. The driver bought them all. He paid 25 cents a piece for the chickens, 25 cents per pound for the butter, and 15 cents a dozen for eggs. He piled the chickens on the top of the stage, the baskets of eggs inside, the butter in the boot of the stage, until at last we had about 6 dozen live chickens, five baskets and one box of eggs, several pails of butter, one can of oil, and a long cross cut saw.

The road was very rough with many streams of water without bridges. As we came along the old Stage creaked, the saw and boxes and pails clattered, the egg baskets tumbled about, the chicks crawled under the railing and hung with their heads down all around the top of the stage, and squalled and squawked; others on top to which their legs were tied, flopped their wings and cackled; one of the women was sea sick, their babies cried at the top of their voices, and (another passenger) wondered "how much furder' we got to go?" The sight was ludicrous enough.

We met an old lady on a pony and frightened the pony nearly to death. One of the passengers had to get out and lead the pony off into the woods till we passed. After dusk we arrived at the home of the driver, where it turned out that he kept a Boarding House for a gang of men who were building a Railroad and his purchases were to supply the table. Love to all

PAPA