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Charles

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As we have done with many other diversity Months — Black History,Women's History, Hispanic Heritage, Asian Pacific heritage — Guided By History is presenting a series of posts celebrating Pride month. This year is especially important, as it marks the 40th anniversary of Stonewall and the beginning of LGBT awareness.

Tim Collins is Wells Fargo's Experiential Marketing Chief. He oversees several Marketing operations, including the History Team. Recently, I asked him about his experiences since Stonewall. Tim's life is a terrific historical marker for the progress of this movement: its development — and his — move across time together. (CR)

CR: Stonewall happened when you were in grade school — right at the end of the year. Do you remember that particular heat spell, which was happening that week? Did you see anything on TV?
TC: The Stonewall riots  happened when I was 10 years old. It was local news in New York, but not in Philadelphia, where I grew up. I do remember the heat wave though. Everyone was worried there might be a repeat of the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy a year earlier.

CR: What were your impressions? How did they connect with your own developing sense of yourself?
TC: I knew I was gay when I was four years old. But I never let anyone know until I was twenty.

CR: Within a short time, Gay activism emerged as the 60s quieted down. Gay rights got a bigger spotlight. What was your experience?
TC: I started to hear more about Stonewall in subsequent years. New York held the first commemoration only a month later, but it really took off as an annual event. There were regular events — Christopher Street  in New York, and "Christopher Street West"  in LA. Then came Anita Bryant  and Harvey Milk.  The media started to report on it. That’s when I knew that I was not alone.

CR:: During the 80s, AIDS radically changed Gay life. But I also remember LGBT people were more and more — what’s the right word? — usual in those years: LGBT people were visible everyday, where only a few years earlier they were not. What was that era like for you?
TC: The onset of AIDS was a particularly terrible time. I remember throwing out address books every two years because most of the people in it were dead. But over the years there was more hope than hopelessness, as we have made progress in employment, safety, health and family. Since then, Pride month has provided an annual snapshot of the struggle of LGBT people around the world.

CR:: What were your challenges over the years? What things ended up being easier than you expected? What things ended up being more difficult than you expected?
TC: When I was 20, my mother found out I was gay. She cried because she worried that I could never get married and I would die alone. But it worked out OK — as you know, Darrell and I celebrated our 20th anniversary last year. I sooo wish she had been alive to see it. It’s a long way from Stonewall.

CR:: Since then, you’re a Wells Fargo executive. What’s your experience with Wells Fargo as a place to work?
TC: I am sooo proud to work for a company that has been supportive from the beginning…since 1986.

Woohoo!

Charles

Today — Juneteenth — is the American emancipation holiday. On June 19, 1865, Union Army troops marched into Galveston, Texas and officially proclaimed freedom for enslaved people there. From its origins almost 150 years ago, observance of Junteenth has spread across the country.

The National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign  is an organization that is working to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Rev. Ronald Myers, Sr., M.D. is Chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation , as well as the Holiday Campaign. When he contacted me last year about Juneteenth, "Doc" wrote, "Juneteenth is America’s 2nd Independence Day celebration. 29 states  recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance, as well as the Congress of the United States." Since last year, two more states are on that list.

There are ample reasons to observe Juneteenth. The main one is plain: It's an Independence Day , as significant as the one we celebrate on July 4th. 

I also believe, without trying to be trite or simplistic, that another holiday in summer is good for the soul. Summer holidays are the best. We are outside, we gather as family and friends, we laugh a lot, cook great food. Old guys show young whippersnappers that they can still get wood on the ball, and someone learns the secret ingredient to that blue-ribbon sauce. Juneteenth comes just as school gets out for the summer, so everyone has high hopes and big plans. It's Solstice , so the day lasts till 9:00 p.m., and the kids sleep that perfect sleep after playing hard, all day. It comes a couple weeks before the 4th, so the two become inextricably connected, a "liberty period," if you will, where Americans live their independence spirit as much as they mark it.

And when you think of the hows and whys of Juneteenth and July 4th, you get the sense that the observance is a celebration in common, that we come together, with all our differences, to share a singular experience. At long last.

Bill Taylor

On Monday, I blogged about Northwestern National Bank's centennial idea to have a "Pioneer Bank" then a "Future Bank." Wells Fargo team member Leslie Swan worked at both when she began her career in banking. She shared with me the popularity of the Pioneer Bank.

Now...to the Future Bank!

The Pioneer Bank's life span was planned to last six months. The space was then quickly renovated into a new banking experience called "The Future Bank." Where Pioneer Bank had offered a glimpse of the past, the Future Bank was to give banking customers a tangible look forward into the future.

The fully functional teller line offered the same personalized services that conventional tellers provided. But if customers chose to, they could also access bank services by space age  machines that must have seemed worthy of George Jetson.  A 24-Hour Total Teller Machine allowed $25 or $50 dollar withdrawals (with a $100 per day limit). A Picture Phone, with a direct line to personal banking, served as the directory of information on departments and services. The Banking Services Information Console was a kiosk with videotaped information on various banking services. The information included instructions on how to write yourself a loan from Ready Reserve, use the Instant Cash Card, and how to determine which savings account was best for the customer.

Most intriguing to me were Video Tellers and a Self-Service Postal Center. At the One Universal TV Tellers, customers conversed with tellers via closed circuit TV, using pneumatic tubes to send the work back and forth. Video Tellers were touted as having "Mechanical efficiency with a personal touch." The Self-Service Postal Center, which seems monstrous by today's standards, sold stamps, accepted letters and packages, and contained a "Hotline" connection to the main post office information desk....

Bill Taylor

At the Wells Fargo History Museums, it is our job to interpret, discuss, and relay history to our visitors. I find it fascinating that we are often the recipients of history from our visitors.

In Minneapolis recently, team member Leslie Swan told me about some of her more memorable experiences working for Northwestern National Bank at the beginning of her career. She had the unique experience of working in both the "Pioneer Bank" — a fully functional turn of the century replica bank — and the "Future Bank," a fully functional bank that highlighted the future of banking, including ATMs, an automated post office, and video bankers. Both "Pioneer Bank" and "Future Bank" were created to celebrate Northwestern National Bank's centennial in 1972.

Let me share what I learned from Leslie.

The Pioneer Bank
The Pioneer Bank opened March 23, 1972, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis. Housed in a small section of the building's main floor, the Pioneer Bank replicated an 1890s bank, with authentic fixtures and employees dressed in period costume. There was even a turn-of-the-century entrance on 7th Street.

A Centennial Committee, working with retired bank historian Tony Dokken, spent six months researching and acquiring 1890s period items for the Pioneer Bank. The authentic turn of the century teller's cages, and a high table for hand ledger postings, were found in the Elrosa, Minnesota  State Bank Building. The Minnesota Historical Society  loaned other items, such as a period typewriter, check perforator, a letter scale, Dictaphone, hat rack, umbrella stand and spittoon. A lobby writing desk and other bank fixtures came from the North American State Bank in Belgrade, Minnesota.  A period roll-top desk was located in an Iowa office building.

Portraits of presidents Washington, Lincoln, Garfield, and Grant decorated the walls, along with a portrait of Dorilus Morrison, NWNB bank's first president and Minneapolis' first mayor....

Charles

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.