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James J. Hill and the First Energy Revolution: A Study in Entrepreneurship, 1865–1878

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Albro Martin
Albro Martin
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, American University
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Abstract

Led by James J. Hill, a group of businessmen expanded the use of coal as a fuel in the Northwest by monopolizing the market, apportioning the business among a limited number of people, maintaining prices, profit margins, and profit flow, thereby establishing a reputation of dependability for the fuel and a source of risk capital for further investment in the industry. This, Professor Martin argues, was a clear case of “constructive monopoly.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , Summer 1976 , pp. 179 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1976

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References

1 Haslam, Robert T. and Russell, Robert P., Fuels and their Combustion (New York, 1936), 2Google Scholar; Eavenson, Howard N., First Century and a Quarter of the American Coal Industry (Baltimore, 1942), 418–419Google Scholar; Yearley, Clifton K. Jr, Enterprise and Anthracite: Economics and Democracy in Schuylkill County, 1820–1875 (Baltimore, 1961).Google ScholarChandler, Alfred D., “Anthracite Coal and the Beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the United States,” Business History Review (Summer, 1972), 141–181CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is an excellent summary of the problems encountered in taking advantage of anthracite coal.

2 St. Anthony Falls Democrat, July 20, 1871; St. Paul Daily Press, February 3, 1870 and November 3, 1872.

3 Macfarlane, James, Coal-Regions of America; Their Topography, Geology, and Development (New York, 1873)Google Scholar; Taylor, Richard C., Statistics of Coal (Philadelphia, rev. ed., 1855)Google Scholar; Lesley, J. P., Manual of Coal and Its Topography (Philadelphia, 1856).Google Scholar So prosaic did coal become that Hartsough, Mildred L., Twin Cities as a Metropolitan Market (Minneapolis, 1925)Google Scholar, ignored the role of coal in the development of the Twin Cities as the economic center of the Northwest.

4 W. G. Swan was general superintendent of the Chicago & North Western Railroad and Hill's close friend. Pittsburgh was a steam-making coal; Lehigh and Lackawanna, the best anthracites. It took Hill some time to get the spelling of Blossburg coal, which blacksmiths preferred, just right. Robert Law was the general sales agent in Chicago for a group of leading anthracite producers. These letters are in the James J. Hill Papers, James J. Hill Reference Library, St. Paul, Minnesota, the primary source for this article.

5 Hill to Law, July 19, 1867.

6 Hill to Robert Law, Sept. 10, 1867; to O. E. Britt, July 21, 1868.

7 Hill to Wellington, June 20, 1867.

8 St. Paul Daily Press, May 25, 1867.

9 St. Paul Daily Press, December 20, 1870; Articles of Co-partnership, August 20 and 25, 1869; Articles of Co-partnership, January 1, 1872.

10 Memorandum of Agreement, May 10, 1872; memorandum in files, May 6, 1873.

11 Memorandum of Agreement with C. W. Griggs, May 1, 1875; Articles of Agreement between James J. Hill, Acker, Armstrong, and Saunders, May 1, 1875; Hill to C. M. Under bill, May 3, 1875.

12 Saunders was testifying in the lawsuit, Farley v. Hill, in which Joseph Farley, receiver of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, demanded a share of the profits that Hill and others had made in reorganizing the railroad; cf. Transcript, II, Part 2, pp. 1487–1488.

13 Hill to Underhill, May 3, 1875; to R. C Elmore & Co., June 9, 1875; to Underhill, June 26, 1875.

14 Diary of James J. Hill, 1874. St. Paul Daily Press, July 12, 1873; Underhill to Hill and Acker, April 19, 1876; Hill to Underhill, December 6, 1875.

15 Diary, 1873; St. Paul Pioneer, June 20, 1875; St. Paul Daily Dispatch, July 10, 1875.

16 “E.M.P.” to Hill & Acker, November 29, 1875; Hill to Armstrong, December 26, 1876.

17 Theodore Macy, Duluth, to Hill, December 7, 1874.

18 Hanna to Hill, August 24 and September 16, 1875; E. N. Saunders, Cleveland (on Hanna & Co. letterhead), November 9, 1875; Jones to Hill, October 19 and November 29, 1875.

19 Jones to Hill, September 11, 1875; Hill to F. B. Clarke, June 7, 1877; to George Repplier, New York, December 29, 1876; to Charles Mackall, Baltimore, June 29, 1877; Acker to Messrs. Jones & Parkhurst, Sheldon, Minn., January 15, 1877.

20 Hill to C. M. Underhill, September 7, 1875.

21 Hill to C. M. Underhill, September 20, 1875.

22 C. M. Underhill to Hill, September 20, 1875.

23 Hill to Underhill, November 19, 1875, and March 16 and April 13, 1876; Underhill to Hill, December 2, 1875; Hill to Griggs, May 30, 1876.

24 Hill to J. P. Illsley, March 17, 1876; Illsley to Hill, March 25, 1876; Hill to Britt, September 20, 1876; Britt to Hill, September 22, 1876.

25 A. G. Yates, Rochester, N. Y., to Hill, October 21, 1876; Lambie & Bates, Cleveland, to Hill, October 24, 1876; Articles of Incorporation, May 1, 1877, JJHP, GC; St. Paul Daily Dispatch, May 25, 1877.