May 2009 Archives

Charles

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When I wrote about Wells Fargo's 1916 office in the Philippines a couple weeks ago, I got this response:

Thanks for this entry. My wife grew up in the Philippines and I just eat up anything I can regarding FIlipino [sic] history, especially pre WWII. I think it is very important for me to learn as much about Pinoy history and culture as I can so I can help my childeren [sic] understand and be proud of their own heritage and see Filipino culture as something deeper than what we see on ASAP & The Buzz (popular Filipino TV shows). So, thanks for the post. A question: how long did Wells maintain a presence in the Philippines and what were the reasons for their exit from the island?

Thanks!
Dave

Before I answer Dave's question, this is a great example for why we celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month. (Indeed, all diversity.) Not only have people from different places and cultures contributed to our national parade, as it were, they also have — are! — contributing every moment. As with Dave and his family, they get married, move to new places, have kids and send them to school. They do everything that everybody does. Recognizing diversity isn't about calling out the differences one day or one month each year, it's about seeing all we have in common, beneath the physical and cultural differences.

From there, sharing any differences makes everybody better off. I mean, how can you be suspicious of Southeast Asian differences after you've eaten cuisine from the region? How can you dismiss Latin Americans' differences after you learn Spanish and discover its poetic genius, maybe the loveliest expression of being human?

OK, I'm getting all worked up about the potential of One World , so I'll stop. Just promise me you'll go to the next local ethnic festival , eat the food and listen to the sounds. It's a day well spent, and I stake my good looks on it!

Back to Dave's question about Wells Fargo in the Philippines. Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express opened offices there starting in 1902. In 1918, the Express was absorbed by the U.S. Government as a wartime measure, but Wells Fargo Bank continued operations in San Francisco. With dozens of correspondent offices worldwide, including 16 in the Philippines, Wells Fargo Bank transacted financial services around the globe.

In 1935, Wells Fargo Chairman Frederick L. Lipman declared, "The Bank of the Philippines at Manila is an old correspondent." Since the 1960s, relationships with other international financial services companies, and Wells Fargo's own remittance services, continue Wells Fargo's global reach.

Short answer: Wells Fargo is still there!

Bob

"The finest vehicles in the world without any dispute are stagecoaches," a Boston paper trumpeted in 1825. After all, these democratic vehicles, the first public transportation, carried "the young and old, the rich and the poor, the great and small, male and female, of all ranks and conditions."

Coming out of the Revolutionary War, the young United States had a constitutional mandate to "promote the general welfare."  The Post Office encouraged swift delivery of the mails, ordered the construction of post roads  and designed "United States Mail Stages." A growing network of mail coaches from New England to Washington, D.C., George Washington declared, was "an establishment, which I had conceived to be of great importance." By the 1780s, papers advertised "The Flying Stage Coaches" of the "Swiftsure Line."  (Scroll down to "III. Stage Coaches")

However, until the great turnpike movement of the early nineteenth century transformed the rocky trails of the Northeast into decent roads, "The Shake Gut Line" could have applied to all stagecoaching. Relay or Swing stations were about 12 miles apart, while cozy taverns providing warm meals, beds, and usually the post office, were 40 miles distant.

Key man was the driver, usually a wiry New Englander, who ruled route, riders, and coach. Since a kid, he had practiced with six lines on a reining rig, learning to manipulate them all simultaneously. Only a light touch told a horse what to do, keeping its mouth uncalloused and "sweet" — often a verbal command did the job. The loud popping of a whip impressed passengers.

Rough roads brought forth the driver's skill. Passengers complained of "reckless speed," but the mail had to go through — or the company paid the government $1 per each delay of a half hour! Passengers who wished greater speed paid one-third more to be among the "limited," going day and night with the mails. Others who wished a more leisurely journey accepted the "accommodation" service.

One noted "whip" was elegantly-dressed Charlie Parkhurst, usually seen dashing around Providence, Rhode Island, with a team of matched grays. Parkhurst became one of those who made the transition West, guiding a coach and six out of Sacramento into the Gold Country when Wells Fargo opened in 1852. Thirty years later, death revealed that Charlie had made another transition: He was a SHE!

By the late 1820s, the mail coach had evolved — first at Albany, the jumping off point for the West, and nearby Troy, New York. James Reeside , who owned so many he was called the "Land Admiral," advertised his "Splendid Red Coaches" of Troy manufacture on his lines from Baltimore to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to New York.

Coach design reached its peak at the stagecoach center of Concord, New Hampshire. There, Lewis Downing and J. Stephen Abbot used Yankee craftsmen to fashion iron, ash, oak, and other woods into strong, egg-shaped coach bodies, suspended on rocking bull-hide leather thoroughbraces. That Connecticut Yankee, Mark Twain, described the Concord coach as "an imposing cradle on wheels."

Most of Wells Fargo's current fleet of historic Concord coaches saw long service in the East, from the White Mountains of New Hampshire, to the bluegrass region of Kentucky. Of course, Concords moved West. In 1867, Wells Fargo ordered 30 from Abbot-Downing — its largest order ever — made extra sturdy and roomier. Wells Fargo paid $1,100 each for classy coaches with red bodies and straw carriages. From New Hampshire to California, Concords spanned the nation.

Charles

Like me, Jim Davis loves TV. But Davis is ahead (I'm not really keeping track) because he loves what's on now, where I like old stuff. It gets interesting (weird, maybe?) when you consider Jim Davis's "now" is the old stuff I like, because he was a TV nut 60 years ago. So we're sorta contemporaries, Davis and me.

Sorta.

Davis was spotlighted in the April 1949 issue of Wells Fargo Messenger. The Messenger was the newsletter that went to team members across the footprint, which was limited to San Francisco in those days. The older version of the Messenger, which we've written about before, was distributed to Wells Fargo Express team members.

Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was nationalized by the US government in 1918 as a wartime measure, and Wells Fargo was left with its one banking office in San Francisco. These mid-century Messengers had a lot of items about new hires and Company picnics. Reading through these timeless communiqués, it seems like Wells Fargo had a continuous photo contest — and the "seagull on the shore at sunset" won every time.

Anyhow, Davis was an interesting story because he was quite the expert on that newfangled gizmo, television. In 1949, radio was still going strong and the movies had yet to suffer television's astounding popularity in the '50s. But TV was taking off  — there were about a million sets in operation and the lineup of shows was expanding. The first Emmy Awards  were presented that year. And since Davis knew so much about something so cutting-edge, the Messenger took it upon itself to share his expertise with team members.

The Q&A is quite helpful. A 10-inch screen — top of the line, folks — with a magnifier attached is "hi def." And that magnifier lets you buy the TV already assembled! Why sweat?

And how 'bout those 4 hours of programming each night? (Pass the ketchup.)

But here's how new the application was. To show Davis as a TV geek, they thought it appropriate to show him holding a length of film. You know, like the movies, only in your living room. And not film.

Awesome.

Megan

One of the last things you'd expect to see while waiting around for some foreign currency is a photo of your grandpa. But that's what happened to Nell, a visitor at our museum in Minneapolis. While her son exchanged money for a trip to Argentina, Nell browsed our exhibit cases and caught a strange site: A photo of her grandfather, J. Raymond Smith, smiling from behind the wheel of an automobile.

Smith started working for Northwestern National Bank  in Minneapolis in 1909. He started as a bank messenger, and worked his up to become Comptroller.  He took his job seriously (though not overly seriously, maybe, judging by the photos). Nell told us he would stay up all night to get the annual Statement of Condition completed, and have it delivered to the Minneapolis Star  for publication on January first every year.

Nell lived with her grandfather while she was growing up. She fondly recalls this gregarious man who loved to hunt and fish. Turns out the "J" in Smith's name was just an initial, by the way. It didn't stand for anything.

It just so happens that in our Northwestern National Bank collection we have a series of lantern glass slides , that capture bank employees, both hard at work and having fun. These images were part of that series. Luckily, we were able to provide the photos as a Mother's Day present to Nell's mother (Ray's daughter) who isn't able to visit the museum in person.

Charles

In November 1916, the Wells Fargo Messenger reported on the Company's new operations in the Philippines. The office of Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was at 25 and 26 Calle David, Manila, just off the Escolta  — "Manila's Broadway" at the time.

Wells Fargo had offices in the Philippines since 1902. The archipelago , along with other Pacific and Carribbean countries, was annexed by the United States after war with Spain  in 1898. Flush with patriotic and imperial zeal, American business established itself in these new territories.

Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was excited to be an important part of Pacific commerce. The Messenger report was written by George A. O'Brien, Wells Fargo's "Foreign Manager for the Orient." Images showed a bustling Escolta, with ox carts, horse-drawn traffic, automobiles and a trolley.

O'Brien noted the energy of local people, and their interest in all things Western.Of course, it's hard to know what resistance O'Brien met, or how much indifference he may have noticed. He confined his explorations to a view from the Manila office and a scan of reports on local facilities.From that vantage, business was good in the Philippines.

"When one comes to consider freight," O'Brien writes, "he begins to wonder just what traffic would naturally move by Wells Fargo from the Philippines. It does not take much imagination to realize what goods our company will carry from the horne country to its far eastern possessions." The US was in it's full industrial adolescence —impulsive and energetic. "For the return trip, however," he pondered, "the Philippines offer many express possibilities. For instance, there is the cigar business." O'Brien also suggested produce, poultry, eggs and fish.

"And then there is the embroidery traffic,"O'Brien noted. In that period, embroidery  was a coming industry in the islands. It was a household industry, fostered by the government. And since the start of World War I two years earlier, the embroidery  supply from Europe was cut off and dealers turned to the Philippines. Uncle Sam's Far East possessions, wrested by war a generation earlier, became an opportunity for trade with new war-torn markets.

Steve

Sunday was Mother's Day, but May 10th is also National Train Day.  On that date, cities around the nation celebrate the 140th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad  at Promontory Summit, Utah.

The railroad not only transformed the nation, but also the express business. In 1869, the "iron horse" extended Wells Fargo's reach through Kansas and Nebraska. Wells, Fargo & Co. was in the express car at the head of the train, right behind the coal tender.  Railroads expanded business and settlement and greatly increased Wells Fargo's ability to move customers' money, packages, and mail in these growing economies. The growth of Oregon is a good illustration of the impact of railroads on America.

Rail barons competed to link Oregon with California and the East. In the 1860's, the Northern Pacific Railroad  obtained a grant from the federal government to build a railroad through the Northern states into Washington, along the north side of the Columbia River. (This threatened the business of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company  — a railroad along the Columbia meant there was no need to transfer goods from steamship to railroad and back to steamship. An older era gave way to the new.)

In 1883, the Northern Pacific joined Portland with the Great Lakes, opening Eastern markets for Oregon products. In Oregon, early lines radiated from Portland, skirting rapids and speeding up commerce along the river valleys. In the 1870s, Ben Holladay  built the Oregon and California Railroad  through Salem and Eugene, reaching Roseburg by 1872. Wells Fargo quickly contracted with the railroad. For $1,000 a month, Wells Fargo was given a separate express car on each passenger train between Portland and Roseburg, to carry four tons of express and freight. In 1884, California's Southern Pacific gained control of this north-south railroad, and Charles Crocker completed it in 1887. 

In the 1880s, Portland boomed. The city saw phenomenal growth in population, from 90,000 to 200,000 in the early 20th century. As more Oregonians settled into farming and ranching, the nature of business shifted. The railroads made markets for Oregon's produce, livestock, and lumber, as well as for Portland manufactures. On any given day, Wells Fargo's agents, drivers, and messengers handled a wide variety of material for and from Portland. The receipts for express shipments tell the story — businesses, farmers, and individuals depended on Wells Fargo's reliable speed.

The Meussendorfer hat company maintained offices in San Francisco and Portland, and was one of Wells Fargo's best customers. Eggs from McMinnville and Medford arrived from growers looking to enter competitive markets. Apples from Oregon's famed orchards sped South and East. So many cans of milk and cream came to town that Wells Fargo had a special depot clerk track it all. In 1914, dairy farmers in Tillamook  County, unreachable by railroad until 1911, had too many newborn calves. Wells Fargo's Tillamook agent, E.T. Watkins, found that farmers in the Willamette Valley would pay good money for calves. Within a year Wells Fargo had shipped 4,000 calves, all less than four days old.

Railroad building also linked Oregon's coastal communities. In 1885, the Willamette Valley & Coast Railroad Company reached Yaquina (Newport) on the coast, while in 1898, the Astoria & Columbia River Railroad Company arrived in Astoria. In October 1911, the frst train from Portland arrived at Tillamook. Between August 24 and August 26, 1916, Coos Bay celebrated when the frst Southern Pacifc train, with Wells, Fargo & Co's Express, arrived from Eugene. The coming of the railroad gave Wells Fargo new opportunities to come through for its customers.

Charles

Amanda Hopper is an interpreter at the Old Sacramento History Museum. She joined Wells Fargo in May of 2007. Amanda enjoys giving tours and sharing Wells Fargo’s history with all the visitors to Old Sacramento.

So do the right thing — drop everything and call your Mom right now. (Just don't use the Company phone!) (CR)

This is a very special Mother's Day  for me. It's the first I get to celebrate as a Mom. My daughter Marlee is 6 months old, and in the short time I've been a Mom, I have learned quite a bit.

One thing I've learned is that the flowers I've been giving my own Mom for 25 years are not what she really wants.

What she really wants is to know that she is loved, and that I appreciate everything she has ever done — and continues to do for me.

I took all the classes I could to prepare for Motherhood, but nothing could prepare me for the reality .  In the past six months, I've:

• been thrown up on 
• been peed on 
• gone days without a shower 
• slept no more  than 5 hours a night

(Although I'm not sure I'd really call it "sleeping." What I do is lay in bed with my eyes closed, listening to my daughter breathe and waiting to hear her move so I can go pick her up.)

I've prepared bottles at 1:00am. I have to eat my own meals like I'm in an eating contest. My boss thinks the baby ate my brain, because I had to be re-trained on everything when I came back from maternity leave. I spend my days tired and cranky, with a constant "to-do" list in my head. I spend the paycheck on formula, diapers and wipes. And new clothes for Marlee every 8 weeks.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. My daughter is the best thing that ever happened to me. Every day is a new experience. I don't mind that my brain and my body will never be the same — she is worth it, and I love every second of being her Mom.

So I have a new-found wisdom on this Mother's Day.  Apart from flowers or jewelry, or however you honor your Mother, try this year to tell your Mom how much you appreciate her. How much you appreciate all the sacrifices she made for you. Try to tell her how you appreciate that she has loved you so unconditionally for your whole life.

Allan

My beloved Santa Barbara is on fire again. I moved away to go to college in 1979, but my father still lives in the house I grew up in on San Roque Road.

One of my first memories as a child revolves around the Coyote fire of 1964. I can still see the flickering lights of the flames in the canyon as the fire made its way to Steven's Park.  Last night the fire came back near there, but news reports  I have found indicate firefighters have managed to keep the fire mostly out of Steven's Park.

My dad told me when I got older that he went down to Steven's Park that night in '64. Using a shovel, he fought the fire with some neighbors. Underneath the Foothill Road (Highway 192) bridge, he put out a small fire that had caught on the fence of the house there — I imagine he probably saved the house. My dad's story reminds me of a similar one from a friend, who told me that just before he'd left his house during the Witch Creek fire two years ago in Rancho Bernardo, a neighbor had put out a small fire started by embers on a wooden fence across the street from his house.

It's those embers that can burn down a house miles in front of the advancing inferno.

I found and interesting story in the LA Times  about another such resident, George Quinn, who used garden hoses to defend the house he had lived in since 1952. "Soaking wet and smoking a cigarette," Quinn claimed, "I put everything out, the damn firefighters were no help." His wife Barbara said, "We were calm...if you get hysterical, nothing happens."

I'm not sure exactly what that means, but perhaps she was saying nothing gets done unless we do it ourselves. And even though I can't really condone their actions, I also can't help but admire old codgers who stand and fight off the flames, like Mr. Quinn and my dad (who admittedly was younger than I am now when he picked up that shovel).

It is incumbent on all of us who live in fire zones to prepare for the inevitability of these conflagrations by clearing brush and creating defensible space. Agencies fighting the fire, despite Mr. Quinn's protestations, are a great help, but can't be everywhere during the disaster. They must encourage evacuation to encourage public safety.

Fear and bravery have their purposes. It's been 45 years since my dad went out and fought a fire. This time he evacuated to Santa Ynez. I think it was the wise thing to do.

Charles

In the nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries, Chinese and Japanese people in America were denied basic civil rights. The Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended Chinese immigration for ten years. The Act   was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was not repealed  until 1943.

This legislation focused on blocking Asian access to society and economy. Asians in that era were portrayed  as "Other," inferior, unable to assimilate and dishonest. Of course, if they were so different, it stands to reason they wouldn't do very well. But Asians are real people, not stereotypes. Their successes kept pace with — and often outpaced — other people's. Many felt threatened by this success, so, bigots developed a "voice" of exclusion, a rhetoric that elevated themselves by reducing Asians.

The sinister nature   of exclusion moved rhetoric away from reason and stoked fear and violence. The same arguments used against the Chinese were used against the Japanese a generation later.

Even before the dramatic migration to California, Whites had shown a propensity for excluding  people of color. Extreme reactions often occurred in times of economic stress, or whenever things appeared to change. By the 1870s, the gold rush was over, the transcontinental railroad was complete and the Civil War had ended. The economy was unstable and Anglo American opportunities for success were challenged by non-Anglos seeking their own opportunities. The dream was passing by too many White men, and resentment set in. To people unable to understand the larger forces at play, "inscrutable" Asians seemed as good a reason as any for their misfortune.

But check this out: By 1880, there were about 75,000 Chinese people in California. After the Exclusion Acts, their population dropped to about half of that. The Japanese population in California grew from 32 people in 1870 to over 10,000 by 1900. Meanwhile, California population as a whole almost doubled in those years, to 1.5 million people* — the Chinese population thus declined to near invisibility. And while Japanese growth was impressive, it actually declined by one-third as a percentage of the entire population! Anti-Asian sentiment was clearly aimed at a diminishing proportion of California population. Any "threat" they posed was utter fiction.

The racism that drove anti-Asian movements degraded everyone. Chinese and Japanese people in America suffered humiliation and violence, and were systematically blocked in the quest for the American Dream. Asian success in that time, and since, is certainly twice the accomplishment in the face of such hostility.

* From Loosley, Foreign Born Population of California, 1848-1920: A Thesis. San Francisco, 1971.

Charles

Asian Pacific Heritage Month celebrates the histories of the many people from Asia and the Pacific islands who have built communities across America. May was chosen because in that month, in 1843, Japanese immigrants  arrived in the U.S. And in May of 1869, the transcontinental railroad  was completed after Chinese workers succeeded in laying track through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 

Historical and genealogical records show even earlier arrivals. Colonial records reveal indentured servants who came to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries were East Indian.  Filipino sailors aboard Spanish Galleons  formed early Asian communities in America. In 1849, Chinese miners and merchants joined the gold rush across the Pacific to the land they called Gum Shan , "Golden Mountain." They soon became some of Wells Fargo's best customers.

Wells Fargo's financial services across the Pacific included Hawaii , still an independent kingdom in the 19th Century. By the early 20th Century Wells Fargo had Representative banking offices that connected U.S. and Asian business communities.

Wells Fargo had a large volume of telegraphic transfers of money with Hong Kong ($623,000 in 1909) and maintained correspondent relationships with banks in Canton, Hong Kong, Peking, Shanghai, and Tientsin.

In 1905, Wells Fargo staunchly advocated that financing international trade — the movement of merchandise — was among the soundest of banking principles. Frederick Lipman was the Cashier, the old-time equivalent to our modern CFO.  He stated, "there was no other phase of banking which compared to it in the service it rendered and in the earnings it could generate."

Melissa

Being a connoisseur of mid-20th Century clothing —and with spring fast approaching—I have been spurred to begin wearing some of my more authentic ensembles. It may also have something to do with the fact that our museum here in Minneapolis just recently finished our newest exhibit, "Riding into Popular Culture," a fantastic multi-media display relating Wells Fargo's colorful influence (in most cases)  on different forms of entertainment  in the mid-20th Century. The exhibit contains many photos and movie posters , as well as the film we have running on "Wells Fargo in the Cinema."

This brings us to our April staff meeting. Megan, Terry, Bill and I were just sitting down in our cushy velvet movie theater seats  when a gentleman and his granddaughter approached us. He pointed at me and said "see, here, look at this!" to his pre-teen companion. We were all a bit confused, and then he asked me to stand up and turn around. "See! Look at that!" he continued, "my mother used to wear stockings like that every day! See the seam?" Apparently, he noticed my Cuban heeled seamed stockings  when he was in the museum earlier. The gentleman came all the way back to show his granddaughter this little piece of history! Needless to say I was flattered that he had noticed this small authentic touch. However, I was more than a little red-faced   to be modeling them in front of my boss and co-workers!

The Wells Fargo History Museum, now giving advice on the ins and outs of your Stock(ing ) Portfolio! (I know, I know...)