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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2014
On November 21, 1903, the Pennsylvania Railroad announced that its north-south through trains would no longer enter Broad Street Station in downtown Philadelphia and would stop instead at West Philadelphia. Nor would the company sell tickets from that station to downtown. These schedule changes, which seemed minor to the company and were intended to reduce congestion in the central city, threatened downtown merchants and manufacturers who worried that buyers would shift to more accessible cities. Philadelphia had been sidetracked, the North American reported. The result was an eruption of boycotts, protests, and petitions that pitted nearly every local trade association against the railroad. Encouraged by the North American's editorials, partisan reporting, and stinging cartoons, the protesters forced the Pennsylvania to back down, and in March 1904, through trains returned to Broad Street. The newspaper cloaked this local business dispute in the language of antimonopoly, linking the fears of small businessmen to national anti-railroad concerns. The sidetrack episode also helped launch modern corporate public relations, as the Pennsylvania—stung by this threat to corporate autonomy—soon hired Ivy Lee as its first publicity agent.
The author wishes to thank the journal's three anonymous reviewers and John K. Brown for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
2 Through trains were those that originated north or south of Philadelphia and continued through the city. Trains that either originated or terminated in Philadelphia continued to use the Broad Street Station. While the details of sidetracking were not presented in annual reports, neither had the company kept them a secret. See “The Pennsylvania Improvements at West Philadelphia,” Railroad Gazette 34 (Dec. 26, 1902): 989Google Scholar.
3 “New P.R.R. Plan to Sidetrack City Arouses Protest,” North American (Philadelphia), Nov. 21, 1903. Pennsylvania Railroad, Annual Report, 1902; Annual Report, 1903 (Philadelphia, 1903, 1904).
4 For background on political cartooning, see Fischer, Roger, Them Damned Pictures (North Haven, 1996), 15Google Scholar; Lamb, Christopher, Drawn and Quartered (New York, 2004)Google Scholar, and Press, Charles, The Political Cartoon (East Brunswick, NJ, 1981)Google Scholar. No other Philadelphia newspaper cartooned sidetracking, probably because cartoons are an offensive weapon, and the other papers were either neutral or favored the railroad in the dispute. John, Richard, “Robber Barons Redux: Antimonopoly Reconsidered,” Enterprise and Society 13 (Mar. 2012): 1–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is one of the few scholars to employ cartoons in business and economic history. For others, see Cohen, Michael, “Cartooning Capitalism: Radical Cartooning and the Making of American Popular Radicalism in the Early Twentieth Century,” International Review of Social History 52, S15 (Dec. 2007): 35–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; David W. Levy and Sandra Peart, “Economists, Crises and Cartoons,” http://econ.duke.edu/uploads/assets/Workshop Papers/levy-peart paper.pdf (accessed May 21, 2014); Jones, James, “Monopoly's Triumph Over Free Market Capitalism, and Cartoons: The Midland Railroad Subscription Referendum of September 1887,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 66 (Dec. 2007): 314–27Google Scholar. Nelson, Scott, “A Financial Crisis in Prints and Cartoons,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 10 (Oct. 2011): 425–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Rodgers, Daniel T., “In Search of Progressivism,” Reviews in American History 10 (Dec. 1982): 113–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. John, “Robber Barons Redux,” stresses the importance of business practices and economic opportunity. This essay also considers Alfred T. Chandler and the managerial revolution, as does John, Richard, “Who Were the Gilders? And Other Seldom-Asked Questions about Business, Technology, and Political Economy in the United States, 1877–1900,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8 (Oct. 2009): 474–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The explosive growth of trusts about this time is analyzed in Lamoreaux, Naomi, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1885–1904 (New York, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 The literature on the political economy of railroad regulation is vast. For a superb discussion of the wider political economy of the Pennsylvania, see Churella, Albert, The Pennsylvania Railroad, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 2013)Google Scholar, ch. 14. For discussions of local issues and inter-business disputes, see in particular Vietor, Richard H. K., “Businessmen and the Political Economy: The Railroad Rate Controversy of 1905,” Journal of American History 64 (June 1977): 47–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, L. Diane, “Urban Rivalry in the Upper Ohio Valley: Wheeling and Pittsburgh in the Nineteenth Century,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 123 (July 1999): 201–26Google Scholar; Blackford, Mansel, “Businessmen and the Regulation of Railroads and Public Utilities in California during the Progressive Era,” Business History Review 44 (Autumn 1970): 307–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an earlier dispute between the Pennsy and Philadelphia, see Schwartz, Joel, “‘To Every Mans Door’: Railroads and Use of the Streets in Jacksonian Philadelphia,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 128 (Jan. 2004): 35–61Google Scholar.
7 Hess, Daniel, “Transportation Beautiful: Did the City Beautiful Movement Improve Urban Transportation?” Journal of Urban History 32 (May 2006): 511–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the Reading, Vitiello, Domenic, “Machine Building and City Building: Urban Planning and Industrial Restructuring in Philadelphia, 1894–1928,” Journal of Urban History 34 (Mar. 2008): 399–434CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Philadelphia's newspapers yield some evidence of concern over the smoke nuisance, but reformers hoped to solve the problem not by banning trains from downtown but via technologies such as brick arches for railroad fireboxes that raised combustion efficiency. For railroads' responses to the smoke problem, see Stradling, David and Tarr, Joel, “Environmental Activism, Locomotive Smoke, and the Corporate Response: The Case of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Chicago Smoke Control,” Business History Review 73 (Winter 1999): 677–704CrossRefGoogle Scholar and sources cited therein. For disputes between railroads and the city in Washington, D.C., Lessoff, Alan, The Nation and its City: Politics, “Corruption,” and Progress in Washington, D.C., 1861–1902 (Baltimore, 1994)Google Scholar, chs. 7–8; and Churella, Pennsylvania Railroad, ch. 15.
8 For railroads' increasing focus on public relations, see Baker, Ray Stannard, “Railroads on Trial,” McClure's 26 (Mar. 1906): 535–49Google Scholar; Cutlip, Scott, “The Nation's First Public Relations Firm,” Journalism Quarterly 43 (Mar. 1966): 269–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aldrich, Mark, “Public Relations and Technology: The Standard Railroad of the World and the Crisis in Railroad Safety,” Pennsylvania History 74 (Winter 2007): 74–104Google Scholar. Studies of the emergence of corporate public relations include Raucher, Alan, Public Relations and Business, 1900–1929 (Baltimore, 1968)Google Scholar; Tedlow, Richard, Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950 (Greenwich, CT, 1969)Google Scholar; and Marchand, Roland, Creating the Corporate Soul (Berkeley, 1998)Google Scholar. On how publicity evolved into public relations, Stoker, Kevin and Rawlins, Brad, “The ‘Light’ of Publicity in the Progressive Era,” Journalism History 30 (Winter 2005): 177–88Google Scholar.
9 For Cassatt's career, see “Alexander Johnson Cassatt,” Railroad Gazette 42 (Jan. 4, 1907): 20Google Scholar; and Michael Bezilla, “Cassatt, Alexander Johnson,” American National Biography Online, www.anb.org/articles (accessed May 5, 2012). Railroad, Pennsylvania, Annual Reports, 1899–1902 (Philadelphia, 1900–03)Google Scholar. For a broader view of the Pennsylvania's improvements during these years, Churella, Pennsylvania Railroad, ch. 15.
10 “Pennsylvania Changes in Philadelphia,” Railroad Gazette 33 (Oct. 25, 1901): 784Google Scholar; Whinery, S., “Improvements on the Pennsylvania Railroad,” Railroad Gazette 35 (Mar. 27, 1903): 221–22Google Scholar; Churella, Pennsylvania Railroad, ch. 15. I am indebted to John K. Brown for some of the ideas in this paragraph.
11 As one of this manuscript's reviewers pointed out, the Pennsylvania had long been caught between the dictates of operating efficiency—which would place its station in West Philadelphia—and competitive rivalry with the Reading and Baltimore & Ohio, which made a downtown location attractive. Thus the company shifted operations between these locations several times before finally fixing on West Philadelphia in the 1930s.
12 Scranton, Philip, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865–1925 (Princeton, 1997)Google Scholar, ch. 11. The list of trade associations that opposed sidetracking is taken from various issues of the North American. Interestingly enough, two of Philadelphia's largest manufacturers, Baldwin Locomotive and Cramp Shipyards, appear to have played little role in the protest, probably because they did not rely on traveling buyers. However, I have found no trade association that sided with the railroad.
13 For the history of many such disputes see Heath, Andrew, “The Public Interest of the Private City: The Pennsylvania Railroad, Urban Space, and Philadelphia's Economic Elite, 1846–1877,” Pennsylvania History 79 (Spring 2012): 179–208Google Scholar. Schwartz, “‘To Every Mans Door.’” For the stopover dispute see, for example, the front page cartoons North American, Aug. 27 and Sept. 12, 1903. Other papers also reported the dispute. See “Pennsy to Grant Resumption of Stop-Off Rights,” Inquirer (Philadelphia), Sept. 11, 1903; “Stop-Over Privilege Restored,” Bulletin, Sept. 11, 1903. For the Community of Interest, see Churella, Pennsylvania Railroad, ch. 14.
14 These were (with circulation for 1903): Evening Bulletin (130,000); Evening Telegraph (112,000); Inquirer (181,000); Press (125,000); Public Ledger (100,000); Record (188,000), and North American (150,000). Data are from N. W. Ayer & Sons, American Newspaper Annual (Philadelphia, 1903)Google Scholar.
15 On Nov. 21, 1903, the Inquirer featured a story on page 1 critical of the Pennsylvania's decision to move through trains to West Philadelphia. Another article appeared the next day, but the Inquirer then dropped the matter for nearly a week. The Bulletin broke the story with a page-one piece on November 23, but by December it was consigning the story to the financial pages. The Record's first article, “Train Changes a Menace,” appeared on November 24; thereafter it reported on the story every few days. The Public Ledger initially ignored the story entirely, as did most of the other papers.
16 On boss rule and its opponents in Progressive Era Philadelphia, McCaffery, Peter, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia (University Park, PA, 1993)Google Scholar. Bloom, Robert, “Edward A. Van Valkenburg and the Philadelphia North American, 1899–1924,” Pennsylvania History 21 (Apr. 1954): 109–27Google Scholar. The editorial was reprinted as “The North American Is Two Years Old To-day,” North American, May 15, 1901.
17 Fischer, Them Damned Pictures, 15. For brief sketches of the careers of McDougall and Nelan, Lamb, Drawn, and Press, The Political Cartoon.
18 “Quay Machine's Gigantic Franchise Grab,” North American, June 8, 1901. See also McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled, ch. 7. Cheape, Charles W., Moving the Masses (Cambridge, MA, 1980)Google Scholar, chs. 6–7, recounts the story from a business history perspective.
19 For contemporary treatments of the Pennypacker affair, Charles Emory Smith, “The Press: Its Liberty and License,” The Independent, June 11, 1903, 1371–75; and “The Rashness of Pennypacker,” Puck, June 3, 1903, 7. Modern discussions include Piott, Steven, “The Right of the Cartoonist: Samuel Pennypacker and the Freedom of the Press,” Pennsylvania History 55 (Spring 1988): 78–93Google Scholar, and Lamb, Drawn and Quartered, ch. 3.
20 The Pennsylvania's only advertisement in the North American consisted of its passenger schedule, which it never pulled throughout the sidetrack controversy.
21 Bloom, “Edward A. Van Valkenburg.” Lincoln Steffens, “Philadelphia: Corrupt and Contented,” McClure's Magazine, July 1903, 249–64. Revell, Keith, Building Gotham: Civic Culture and Public Policy in New York City, 1898–1938 (Baltimore, 2003)Google Scholar. The Pennsylvania only accommodated local interests in the New York-New Jersey region that had power. Revell, Building Gotham, 50–52, describes the travails of the little town of Marion, New Jersey, which was unable to prevent a loss of commuter service as a result of the Pennsylvania's improvements.
22 “New P.R.R. Plan to Sidetrack City Arouses Protest,” North American, Nov. 21, 1903; “New Station Cut Off from City,” Inquirer, Nov. 21, 1903. “Direct result” is from “Pennsy's Order Arouses Protest,” Inquirer, Nov. 22, 1903. Transfer to Broad Street was prohibited by the simple expedient of refusing to sell tickets from West Philadelphia to Broad Street.
23 “Pennsy Spending Millions to Make This a Way Station,” North American, Nov. 23, 1903. “Merchants' Protest against Sidetracking of City Met by Excuses, They Prepare to Fight,” North American, Nov. 24, 1903; “Penna. R.R. Officers Confirm Station Decree,” North American, Nov. 24, 1903.
24 Cartoonists in Puck and elsewhere typically portrayed business leaders in dark hues: Jay Gould as Mephistopheles, Rockefeller as a desiccated corpse, the generic business man as immensely well fed. Here and in the remainder of his images, Nelan emphasized Cassatt's arrogance but usually did so less by caricature than by situating him in a context that emphasized his arbitrary authority.
25 “Another Challenge,” North American, Nov. 24, 1903.
26 “Trade Organizations Begin Vigorous Fight against Sidetracking of City,” North American, Nov. 25, 1903; “Protests Multiply” is from “Laws are Consulted for Means to Fight Sidetracking Decree,” North American, Nov. 26, 1903; “Salesmen Threaten War in Retaliation for Sidetrack Order,” North American, Nov. 27, 1903.
27 The other associations were the Merchants and Travelers' Association, the Commercial Exchange, Board of Trade, Wholesale Grocers and Importers' Exchange, Lumberman's Exchange, Drug Exchange, and Hardware Merchants and Manufacturers' Association. Foulkrod to W. A. Patton, Nov. 30, 1903, vol. 1, file 45/46, box 33, Presidential Correspondence of A. J. Cassatt and James McCrea, Pennsylvania Railroad Records, RG 286, Pennsylvania State Archives [hereafter PC, PRR, PSA].
28 Nelan may well have gotten this idea from John S. Pughe, “The King of the Combinations,” Puck, Feb. 27, 1901, centerfold, cited in John, “Robber Barons Redux.”
29 “The Fight Is On,” North American, Nov. 26, 1903. Foulkrod's remarks are from “To Protest to P.R.R. Today,” Public Ledger, Nov. 30, 1902; “Committee Expects P.R.R. Concessions,” Public Ledger, Dec. 1, 1903. “Penna Railroad Dumps…” North American, Nov. 30, 1903. In the same issue, the travelers are quoted in “Hundreds Feel the Effects of P.R.R. Order for ‘Improvement of the Service’ on First Day.”
30 “Shotted guns” is from “Merchants Plan Vigorous Action against Sidetracking; Awaiting President Cassatt's Answer to their Protest,” North American, Dec. 1, 1903. The cartoon is in North American, Dec. 3, 1903. Late trains are in North American, Dec. 1, 1903; “Mail Service Delayed by Sidetracking of Philadelphia; Outgoing and Incoming Letters Held Up for Hours Daily,” North American, Dec. 2, 1903. The artist's renditions are on p. 10. “Winter Weather Demonstrates in Full Measure Discomforts Attending City's Sidetracking,” North American, Dec. 3, 1903.
31 Cassatt's reply is in “Cassatt Declines to Change Cut-Off Order,” Public Ledger, Dec. 4, 1903.
32 Kline and Gimbel are from “Merchants Riddle Boyd's Defense of Sidetrack Outrage,” North American, Dec. 6, 1903; “Sixth Day of Dumping…,” North American, Dec. 5, 1903. “Schedules Show P.R.R. Sidetrack Order to Be Without Cause,” North American, Dec. 7, 1903. Chiles and Goodwin are from “Travelers on Pennsylvania Railroad Dumped in Suburbs at Night Swell Chorus of Complaints,” North American, Dec. 7, 1903.
33 “The Issue,” North American, Dec. 5, 1903.
34 “Ceases Fight on P.R.R.,” Public Ledger, Dec. 12, 1903. William Tucker to A. J. Cassatt, December 17, 1903, vol. 1, file 45/46, box 33, PC, PRR, PSA.
35 North American, Dec. 9, 1903, p. 16 (map).
36 As noted, none of the other papers cartooned sidetracking. “Philadelphia as a ‘Way Station,’” Inquirer, Dec. 5, 1903; the schedule is from “Cut-Off Order Still Subject to Controversy,” Inquirer, Dec. 5, 1903; “‘Side Track’ Agitation Is Harmful,” Inquirer, Jan. 30, 1904. “Hopeless,” North American Feb. 3, 1904.
37 “The West Philadelphia Station,” Public Ledger, Dec. 4, 1903; Record editorial, Dec. 4, 1903, was quoted in “Here's Enthusiastic Aid for Business Men,” North American, Dec. 5, 1903; “The Newspapers,” North American, Dec. 9, 1903.
38 “Not a Private Enterprise,” North American, Dec. 10, 1903. Heath, “The Public Interest.”
39 “Sidetracking Plan Only Half Disclosed; Protest Blocked It,” North American, Dec. 12, 1903; “21 Organizations To-Day Renew City's Sidetrack Protest,” North American, Dec. 17, 1903; “Secy, Shaw, Victim of Sidetrack, Asks Jersey City for Aid,” North American, Dec. 21, 1903.
40 The Trades Committee letter is contained in “Trades Committee's Courteous Letter Leaves Cassatt No Chance to Evade Sidetrack Issue,” North American, Dec. 23, 1903; Cassatt's response is in “‘Sidetrack Order Our Business; Not Yours’ Is Tenor of Mr. Cassatt's Curt Refusal to United Trade Interests,” North American, Dec. 25, 1903.
41 “Merchants' Board Declares Unending Opposition to the Sidetracking Decree” and “Businessmen Begin War of Retaliation,” North American, Dec. 30, 1903. “Sidetracked Passenger Sues P.R.R. for Broad Street Mileage Taken,” North American, Jan. 1, 1904. “Under Pressure Pennsy Abandons Mileage Extortion,” North American, Jan. 7, 1904; “Pennsy Confesses Mileage Extortion by Paying Claims,” North American, Jan. 10, 1904.
42 The temperature reading is from Cheape, Moving the Masses, 189.
43 “Councils Join Public Protest against Sidetracking and Demand that Pennsylvania Railroad Rescind its Order,” North American, Jan. 8, 1904. Politics once again made strange bedfellows: the North American now found itself in agreement with the machine-dominated city government that it had been fighting since 1899.
44 “Sidetracked Travelers Report Rapid Growth of Retaliation Movement against Penna R. R.,” North American, Jan. 21, 1904. The Board of Trade letter is J. S. Bartoff to A. J. Cassatt, Jan. 14, 1904, vol. 1, file 45/46, box 33, PC, PRR, PSA.
45 “Pennsy Promises Sidetracking Will Cease Sometime,” North American, Jan. 30, 1904; “Some Trains Will Re-Enter Broad Street,” Inquirer, Jan. 30, 1904.
46 “An Object Lesson,” North American, Jan. 30, 1904, refers to allegations by the Pennsy that the paper's stories had been made up. “Businessmen with One Voice Say that Sidetracking Philadelphia Must Cease,” North American, Jan. 30, 1904, contains the interviews. Untitled editorial, North American, Feb. 6, 1904. “Sidetracking Hurts City's Prestige as a Medical Center,” North American, Feb. 2, 1904; the cartoon is in North American, Feb. 6, 1904. “Incoming Buyers Assert Sidetracking Is Costing This City Lion's Share of Baltimore Trade,” North American, Feb. 16, 1904; the dogsled cartoon is in North American, Feb. 22, 1904. “Cassatt's Obnoxious Sidetracking Order Becomes Notorious Even on Foreign Shores,” North American, Feb. 21, 1904. “Penna Railroad Men Make Another Vain Effort to Pull Drug Exchange Out of Sidetrack Fight,” North American, Feb. 12, 1904; “Merchants of Rival Cities Urge Sidetracking as a Reason for Philadelphia Trade,” North American, Feb. 19, 1904; “Cassatt's Agents Begging Stockholders to Send in Proxies in Defense of Sidetracking,” North American, Feb. 9, 1904.
47 “Mr. Cassatt Gets Protest from 3,592 Shippers of Freight,” North American, Feb. 25, 1904. Mahlon Kline to A. J. Cassatt, Feb. 25, 1904, vol. 1, file 45/46, box 33, PC, PRR, PSA.
48 “Cassatt Cheers Local Merchants with a Promise,” Record, Mar. 1, 1904; “Sidetrack Order Revoked on Four Important Trains,” North American, Mar. 8, 1904.
49 Life, Feb. 23, 1911, 369.
50 On the rise of public relations, see Raucher, Public Relations; Tedlow, Keeping the Corporate Image; and Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul. See also Churella, Pennsylvania Railroad, ch. 14. Hiebert, Ray, “Ivy Lee: ‘Father of Modern Public relations’,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 27 (Winter 1966): 113–20Google Scholar.
51 The 1911 incident is from “Train Cut Has Aroused Protest,” Public Ledger, Jan. 2, 1911; “May Protest to Pennsy,” Bulletin, Jan. 2, 1911; “McCrea Defends P.R.R.'s Service in Philadelphia,” Inquirer, Jan. 13, 1911. “Information for the Press,” Pennsylvania Railroad, Jan. 13, 1911, file 51/31, box 27, PC, PRR, PSA; James McCrea to Thomas Martindale [president, Trades League], Jan. 12, 1911, and Martindale to McCrea, Jan. 13, 1911, both in file 51/31, box 27, PC, PRR, PSA.