{"id":1494,"date":"2002-09-21T06:48:56","date_gmt":"2002-09-21T06:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2014-01-08T07:49:46","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T07:49:46","slug":"clevelands-a-b-dupont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2002\/09\/21\/clevelands-a-b-dupont\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland’s A.B. duPont: Engineer, Reformer, Visionary"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Arthur E. DeMatteo<\/em><\/h3>\n

Attempting to synthesize the events, agents, and accomplishments of the years spanning\u00a0the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries into a neat package labeled \u201cThe Progressive\u00a0Era\u201d can prove frustrating for the modern historian. Reformers of the period were a diffuse and\u00a0diverse group, often more noteworthy for their disunity and incongruities than for coherence to\u00a0any set of standards; they included pacifists, municipal ownership advocates, feminists, Single\u00a0Taxers, civil rights crusaders, efficiency experts, and countless others. This lack of commonality\u00a0led Peter Filene to assert, in a seminal article published over thirty years ago, that progressivism\u00a0was merely an artificial creation of historians, and that the dynamics of this period were the\u00a0result of \u201cagents and forces more complex than a progressive movement.\u201d[1. Peter G. Filene, “An Obituary for the ‘Progressive Movement’,”\u00a0American Quarterly<\/em>\u00a022 (Spring 1970), 20-34.]<\/p>\n

In an essay of later vintage, historian Daniel Rodgers acknowledged the difficulty of\u00a0defining progressivism, while offering a useful counter-thesis to Filene. Rodgers suggested that\u00a0Progressive Era reformers shared at least one of three \u201cidea clusters,\u201d or \u201cshared languages of\u00a0discontent.\u201d[2. Daniel T. Rodgers, “In Search of Progressivism,”\u00a0Reviews in American History\u00a0<\/em>10 (December 1982), 113-32.] The first of these languages, antimonopolism, was traceable to the Jacksonian era,\u00a0and had once been the exclusive domain of \u201coutsiders,\u201d such as farmers and Populists; by the\u00a0turn of the twentieth century, however, the crusade against inequitable taxation and abusive\u00a0business practices had gained acceptance among \u201crespectable\u201d segments of American society.\u00a0The second language, that of \u201csocial bonds,\u201d was more specific to the Progressive Era, and\u00a0encompassed an attack on a \u201cset of formal fictions,\u201d including notions of racial, sexual, or ethnic\u00a0inferiority; it sought to create a \u201cconsciously contrived harmony\u201d among societal groups. The\u00a0third language of discontent was that of \u201csocial efficiency,\u201d and could be applied to a broad\u00a0range of reformers, from those seeking to rationalize and streamline municipal government to\u00a0engineers designing modern manufacturing plants.<\/p>\n

Like so many reformers of his era, Antoine Bidermann duPont, friend and confidant of\u00a0Cleveland Mayor Tom L. Johnson, was a complex person who defies easy categorization.\u00a0Throughout his life he applied his low-key efficiency to sundry endeavors and crusades, nearly\u00a0all of them intended to make the world better in some way. Despite his wealth and family\u00a0name, duPont was a proponent of tax equalization, free trade, and municipal ownership of\u00a0public utilities. He supported the causes of feminism and civil rights, and was an associate of\u00a0some of America\u2019s most renowned reformers. And duPont became an expert in the efficient\u00a0management and modernization of street railway lines and other commercial concerns. His\u00a0efforts at an eclectic mix of reforms and activities conform to all three of the \u201cidea clusters\u201d\u00a0posited by Rodgers. A.B. duPont is not a well-known figure, usually mentioned only in an\u00a0obscure footnote or in the index of an old book, and he spent only the final thirteen years of his\u00a0life in Cleveland. But he was a major public figure during one of Northeast Ohio\u2019s most\u00a0dynamic eras. More importantly, his life helps define the very essence of the Progressive Era,\u00a0and that is what makes him worth studying.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Antoine Bidermann duPont Jr. was born in 1865 in Louisville, the great-grandson of the\u00a0French-born industrialist Eleuthere Irenee duPont deNemours. Eleven years earlier duPont\u2019s\u00a0father, Antoine Bidermann Sr., and his uncle, Alfred Victor II, had left Delaware to seek their\u00a0fortunes in Kentucky. The brothers soon established successful enterprises in paper\u00a0manufacturing, explosives, coal mining, iron and steel production, and newspaper publishing,\u00a0and at one point enjoyed monopoly control of Louisville\u2019s street railway system.[3. Louisville was hardly a random choice; the duPont Company had established a western sales office there in the 1830s for its gunpowder and related products. From 1859 to 1873, Alfred Victor duPont served as the company’s sales agent. See Raymond F. Pisney, “The Louisville Agency of E.I. duPont deNumours and Company, 1831-1887” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1965), particularly 5-9. On duPont involvement in the Louisville streetcar system, see “Louisville Scenes: The Autobiography of Fr. Richard J. Meaney,”\u00a0Filson Club History Quarterly<\/em>\u00a058 (January 1984), 5-12.] In 1861\u00a0Antoine Bidermann duPont Sr. married Ellen Coleman of Louisville; Antoine Bidermann Jr. was\u00a0the third of eight children, the second of three sons. Although as an adult he would shorten his\u00a0name to \u201cA.B.\u201d to facilitate the signing of documents, young Antoine Bidermann became\u00a0known affectionately as \u201cErmann,\u201d a nickname close friends would call him throughout his\u00a0life.[4. “DuPont Burial in Kentucky,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a012 April 1919, 3; Charles H. MacKay, “Antoine Bidermann duPont,” in John E. Kleber, ed.,\u00a0The Encyclopedia of Louisville<\/em>\u00a0(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 257-59.]<\/p>\n

The offices of Louisville\u2019s Fourth and Walnut Line, a mule-drawn street railway owned\u00a0by the duPonts, was the venue for the first meeting between young Ermann duPont and the\u00a0\u201cchubby, round faced, curly headed\u201d Tom L. Johnson. In 1869 Alfred Victor duPont had hired\u00a0the Kentucky-born Johnson, a distant relative then fifteen years old, to empty fare boxes. As the\u00a0enterprise expanded to become the Louisville Central Passenger Street Railway, Johnson earned\u00a0promotion to company secretary. Ermann, meanwhile, went to work at age twelve, packing\u00a0coins into paper rolls on Saturdays and during his summer vacations. As duPont grew into\u00a0adulthood, he and Johnson developed a mutually beneficial relationship that would endure\u00a0over the next four decades.[5. “Will Leave,”\u00a0Detroit Tribune,<\/em>\u00a016 December 1900, n.p., clipping, Antoine Bidermann duPont Papers, Mss. A, D938, Folder 1, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, KY (hereafter A.B. duPont Papers, FHS); “DuPont Burial in Kentucky.” On Tom L. Johnson’s years in Louisville and his relationship with the duPonts, see his autobiography,\u00a0My Story,<\/em>\u00a0ed. Elizabeth J. Hauser, (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1911), 9-16. See also Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and Stephen Salisbury,\u00a0Pierre S. duPont and the Making of the Modern Corporation<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 25-28; Michael Massouh, “Tom Loftin Johnson: Engineer-Entrepreneur, 1869-1900” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1971), 6-7; and Eugene C. Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland<\/em>\u00a0(Dayton, OH: Wright State University Press, 1994), 7-9.]<\/p>\n

The friends parted company for a time. The invention of an innovative fare box in 1873\u00a0earned Johnson a fortune, and he left Louisville to invest in street railways in Cleveland and\u00a0other cities, as well as in steel manufacturing plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He soon became\u00a0one of America\u2019s wealthiest entrepreneurs, and in the 1890s served two terms in Congress,\u00a0representing Ohio\u2019s Twentieth District.[6. For a succinct biographical sketch of Tom L. Johnson, see David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, eds.,\u00a0The Dictionary of Cleveland Biography<\/em>(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 249; also useful, despite its age, is Louis Post, “Tom L. Johnson,”\u00a0The Public,<\/em>\u00a06 January 1906, 646-57. On Johnson’s career as a United States Representative, see Robert Gordon Rawlinson, “Tom Johnson and His Congressional Years” (M.A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1958).] Ermann duPont went off to prep school in Boston, and\u00a0later to Rensselaer Polytechnic institute in Troy, New York, where in 1885 he earned a degree in\u00a0civil and electrical engineering. DuPont\u2019s first employment after graduation was as chief\u00a0engineer with the Maine Jellico Mountain Coal Company in Nansee, Kentucky. He then served\u00a0briefly as assistant superintendent for a cable-drawn streetcar line in Brooklyn, New York,\u00a0before returning to Louisville to work for the family-owned Central Passenger Railway; it was\u00a0in this capacity as a street railway engineer that A.B. duPont first earned a national reputation\u00a0for efficiency and innovation.[7. “A.B. duPont Goes to St. Louis,”\u00a0Detroit Free Press,<\/em>\u00a016 December 1900, n.p., clipping, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 1, FHS; Elizabeth J. Hauser, “A.B. duPont – An Appreciation,” non-paginated reprint of an article originally published in\u00a0The Public,<\/em>\u00a028 June 1919, 684-86, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 3, FHS. Elizabeth Hauser, one of Ohio’s leading suffragists, edited Tom L. Johnson’s biography,\u00a0My Story<\/em>. She was also a friend to duPont and his wife, Mary Ethel Clark duPont. Hauser’s article in\u00a0The Public<\/em>\u00a0is the only published biographical sketch of A.B. duPont. The reprinted version in the duPont Papers at the Filson Historical Society provides material not found in the original, and is therefore cited throughout this article. On Hauser, see Van Tassel and Grabowski,\u00a0Dictionary of Cleveland Biography,<\/em>\u00a0210.]<\/p>\n

Despite his father\u2019s doubts about the practicality of electric street railways, in 1889\u00a0young A.B. duPont supervised the electrification of the new Louisville Railway Company, an\u00a0enterprise which had been created through the merger of the Central line and the competing\u00a0City Railway Company. Louisville thus became one of the first cities in the United States to\u00a0convert entirely to electric-powered cars, while many larger cities still depended on horses. It\u00a0was also in Louisville that duPont perfected what would be the most important of his sundry\u00a0streetcar-related inventions, the \u201cduPont Patent Motor Truck.\u201d A streetcar \u201ctruck\u201d was the\u00a0vehicle\u2019s chassis, upon which the car body rested. DuPont designed his new truck to carry the\u00a0larger and heavier electric cars, yet it was as lightweight as earlier trucks, and \u201cof the utmost\u00a0simplicity of construction combined with great strength.\u201d With sidebars and cross bars forged\u00a0from a single piece of steel, there were \u201cconsequently no bolts to work loose\u201d and \u201cno small\u00a0pieces to break and rattle out.\u201d First used by the Louisville system, the device was soon the\u00a0truck of choice for transit lines in Buffalo, St. Louis, and Owensboro, Kentucky. By 1893\u00a0manufacture of the item had shifted from Cleveland to Louisville, where it became known as\u00a0the \u201cLouisville Truck.\u201d Continually improved over the years, it became standard equipment for\u00a0street railways throughout the country, including those owned or managed by Tom L. Johnson.[8. “Central Pass. R.R. Co.,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0February 1888, 81; “Louisville, Ky.,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0January 1890, 79; “A New Motor Truck,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0April 1890, 176-77; “Equipment Notes,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0June 1890, 311, 450; “Equipment Notes,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0June 1891, 329; “The ‘Louisville’ Truck,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0July 1893, 474; “The duPont Truck,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal Souvenir,<\/em>\u00a0the Convention of the American Steel Railway Association, Montreal, October 1895, 93; “New Truck,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0May 1896, 310; “Mr. A.B. duPont,”Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 January 1901, 66; “News and Comments,”\u00a0Filson Club History Quarterly<\/em>\u00a013 (July 1939), 176-77; Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; “A.B. duPont Goes to St. Louis.” Tom Johnson’s company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, eventually purchased the patent and assumed exclusive manufacture of the Louisville Truck; see “Some Important Exhibits,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0November 1894, 740, and Massouh, “Tom L. Johnson: Engineer-Entrepreneur,” 165-66.]<\/p>\n

One such line was the Citizens\u2019 Street Railway Company of Detroit, which in 1894 had\u00a0been purchased by a group headed by Johnson\u2019s brother, Albert. The following year, after\u00a0losing his reelection bid to Congress, Tom Johnson went to Detroit to manage the decrepit\u00a0system, which was then in battle with Mayor Hazen Pingree over a number of issues, including\u00a0outmoded equipment, poor service, and high fares. Pingree had determined that Detroit\u2019s\u00a0streetcar system was the worst of any major American city, and through the creation of a quasi-publicly\u00a0owned competing company he had attempted to force the Citizens\u2019 Line to lower fares,\u00a0modernize its equipment, and expand its service. The subsequent battles between Pingree and\u00a0Tom Johnson are thoroughly chronicled elsewhere; it is sufficient to note that Johnson\u00a0eventually converted to Pingree\u2019s crusade for lowered fares, and the two men became allies.\u00a0Refurbishment of the Detroit system was never a contentious issue, however; from the day he\u00a0assumed control of the Citizens\u2019 Company Johnson\u2019s goal was to make it the most modern and\u00a0efficiently managed transit system in the country. To oversee this endeavor he chose his friend,\u00a0Ermann duPont.[9. The most thorough and balanced narrative of Pingree’s battles with Tom Johnson is Melvin G. Holli,\u00a0Reform in Detroit: Hazen S. Pingree and Urban Politics<\/em>(New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), particularly 103-24; on the condition of Detroit’s street railways in the 1890s, see Holli, 37-38; Johnson provides a self-serving version of his experiences with Pingree in\u00a0My Story,<\/em>\u00a091-97. See also Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a043-53. Graeme O’Geran,\u00a0A History of the Detroit Street Railways<\/em>\u00a0(Detroit: Conover Press, 1931), is an exhaustive account of the legal battles to improve the system and achieve municipal ownership over the course of six decades. For a contemporary description of Pingree’s quasi-public competing streetcar line, see “The System of the Detroit Railway Company,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0January 1896, 1-9.]<\/p>\n

DuPont became general manager and chief engineer of the Citizens\u2019 Line in March 1895.\u00a0He supervised a six-million-dollar renovation of the company\u2019s ninety-seven miles of track,\u00a0including the electrification of horse-drawn sections. DuPont purchased hundreds of new\u00a0electric cars, and to facilitate the weight of the new rolling stock he replaced obsolete track with\u00a0heavier gauge rails manufactured at Tom Johnson\u2019s Pennsylvania mill. DuPont also won praise\u00a0from trade publications for his innovations and inventions in Detroit. These included a thirty-inch\u00a0diameter pipe designed to discharge condensation from the company\u2019s power plant,\u00a0arranged to prevent clogging and freezing in winter, and a novel inspection car mounted on a\u00a0pivoting turntable, which enabled duPont to travel on tracks of varying diameter during his\u00a0inspections without switching cars. It was also likely during his stay in Detroit that duPont\u00a0developed a new electric heating and ventilating system for large streetcars, which was soon\u00a0adopted by street railways throughout the United States. DuPont was also obsessed with the\u00a0\u201clittle touches\u201d designed to cultivate a positive public image for the Citizens\u2019 Line, ranging from\u00a0clean cars to easy-to-read signs.[10. “The Detroit Citizens’ Street Railway Company,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>September 1895, 559-64; “Inspection Car with Portable Turn Table,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 August 1898, 578; Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; Massouh, “Tom L. Johnson: Engineer-Entrepreneur,” 116-17.] Little wonder Tom Johnson later praised his friend for\u00a0creating \u201cthe best electrically equipped street railroad in existence.\u201d[11. Johnson, My Story<\/em>, 92.] In 1898 the Citizens\u2019 Line\u00a0merged with a competing system to form the Detroit, Fort Wayne, & Belle Isle Railway, and\u00a0duPont became general manager of the new, expanded, company.[12. “New Name for a Detroit Company,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 March 1898, 203.]<\/p>\n

The duPont years in Detroit were characterized not only by efficiency, but also by good\u00a0employee relations. The motormen and conductors of the Detroit street railways, represented\u00a0by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Railway Employees, had a reputation for\u00a0\u201c[going] around with a chip on their shoulder,\u201d and had engaged in a bloody strike in 1891.[13. Holli,\u00a0Reform in Detroit,<\/em>\u00a038-41; O’Geran,\u00a0History of the Detroit Street Railways,<\/em>\u00a078-92; “Are Sorry,”\u00a0Detroit Tribune,<\/em>\u00a029 December 1900, n.p., clipping, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 1, FHS.] A\u00a0dearth of source material makes it impossible to assess the intricacies of collective bargaining\u00a0and labor-management relations during the duPont years, but the feeling of mutual respect\u00a0between manager duPont and his workers was so strong that upon the announcement, in\u00a0December 1900, that he was leaving for a position in St. Louis, one thousand members of the\u00a0Association held a farewell banquet in his honor. The union\u2019s president, W.D. Mahon, thanked\u00a0duPont for \u201cthe honorable, respectful way he treated his men.\u201d The Detroit Free Press<\/em> called\u00a0duPont \u201cone of the best street railway men in the country, one of the best citizens and one of the\u00a0best fellows,\u201d and the Detroit News<\/em> proclaimed that duPont would \u201cnever be more popular with\u00a0the street railway men in St. Louis than he has been in Detroit.\u201d[14. “Silver Cup for Manager duPont,”\u00a0Detroit Journal,<\/em>\u00a029 December 1900, n.p., “Big Smoker for duPont,”\u00a0Detroit Free Press,<\/em>\u00a0n.d., n.p., and “Farewell Smoker,”Detroit News,<\/em>\u00a029 December 1900, n.p., clippings, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 1, FHS.]<\/p>\n

It is difficult to ascertain the origins of A.B. duPont\u2019s enlightened attitude towards labor.\u00a0His father had shown no qualms about taking a firm line with unions and breaking strikes in\u00a0Louisville, and his older brother, Thomas Coleman duPont, destined to become president of E.I\u00a0duPont deNumours, had once used convict labor to break a strike in a family-owned Kentucky\u00a0coal mine.[15. MacKay, “Antoine Bidermann duPont,” and “Thomas Coleman duPont,” in Kleber,\u00a0Encyclopedia of Louisville,<\/em>\u00a0258-59.] But many of the duPonts, despite their wealth and positions of privilege, also\u00a0exhibited degrees of independent idealism. For example, Antoine Bidermann duPont Sr. had\u00a0boldly supported the Union cause in the Civil War, despite the presence in Louisville of\u00a0significant Confederate sympathy, and Ermann\u2019s sister Zara would, in later years, march in\u00a0support of the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War.[16. William H.A. Carr,\u00a0The duPonts of Delaware<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1964), 313-18; Gerard Colby,\u00a0DuPont Dynasty<\/em>\u00a0(Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1984), 617-18; MacKay, “Antoine Bidermann duPont.”] But duPont was undoubtedly also\u00a0influenced by his friend, Tom Johnson, who had long cultivated a reputation for enlightened\u00a0labor policies. Johnson\u2019s companies generally paid higher wages than those of his competitors,\u00a0and even during economic recessions he refused to enact layoffs. As a congressman Johnson\u00a0had backed legislation to enact an eight-hour day for federal employees, and no less a figure\u00a0than Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor later commended Johnson for\u00a0endorsing \u201cthe measures in which labor was interested.\u201d[17. Michael Massouh, “Technological and Managerial Innovation: The Johnson Company, 1883-1898,”\u00a0Business History Review<\/em>\u00a050 (Spring 1976), 61, and “Tom L. Johnson” Engineer-Entrepreneur,” 111-14; Hoyt Landon Warner,Progressivism in Ohio,<\/em>\u00a01897-1917 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964), 71-72, 83(n.50); “Gompers’ Letter on Mayor Held,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a01 November 1907, 2.] As Tom Johnson and Antoine\u00a0duPont developed a close relationship, the younger man fell under the influence of his mentor,\u00a0adopting Johnson\u2019s belief in the fair treatment of workers. As historian Hoyt Landon Warner\u00a0has written, \u201cJohnson\u2019s talent for inspiring followers was extraordinary.\u201d[18. Warner, Progressivisim in Ohio<\/em>, 68.]<\/p>\n

Tom Johnson also educated his disciple in the movement for equitable taxation, as\u00a0Ermann duPont\u2019s years in Detroit were marked by a growing allegiance to the Single Tax\u00a0philosophy of reformer Henry George. In his 1879 treatise, Progress and Poverty<\/em>, George argued\u00a0that the inequality between the taxes paid by privileged interests and those paid by working\u00a0class people was responsible for nearly all of the world\u2019s social problems. George proposed\u00a0replacing all taxes with a \u201cSingle Tax\u201d on real estate appreciation. More than simply a tax\u00a0reform measure, Henry George considered his idea a panacea for all of society\u2019s ills.[19. Henry George, Progress and Poverty:\u00a0An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want With Increase of Wealth<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Appleton, 1880); Daniel Aaron,\u00a0Men of Good Hope: A Story of American Progressives<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Oxford University Press, 1951), 55-91.]<\/p>\n

DuPont\u2019s original introduction to the Single Tax probably occurred in a New York City\u00a0hotel room in 1883 or 1884, during a meeting with Johnson, Cleveland attorney L.A. Russell,\u00a0and Johnson\u2019s business associate Arthur Moxham. Upon reading Progress and Poverty<\/em>, Johnson\u00a0became troubled that he had possibly gained his wealth through unfair \u201cprivilege,\u201d thereby\u00a0contributing to America\u2019s social and economic inequality. Johnson asked his friends to read the\u00a0book, and to find whatever inconsistencies they could. When the group met in New York to\u00a0discuss the book, they conceded that all of George\u2019s arguments were sound, marking a turning\u00a0point in the lives of both Johnson and duPont. Johnson soon became a close friend of George,\u00a0who convinced his new disciple to enter politics as a reformer, a course that led Johnson to\u00a0Congress and, eventually, the Cleveland mayoralty.[20. Frederic C. Howe,\u00a0The Confessions of a Reformer<\/em>\u00a0(1925: Reprint, with introduction by James F. Richardson. Kent, OH, and London: Kent State University Press, 1988), 95-97; Johnson tells of his conversion to the Single Tax and his relationship to Henry George in\u00a0My Story,<\/em>\u00a048-58.] Johnson then introduced A.B. duPont to\u00a0George, who responded by saying, \u201cI shall refuse to instruct this young man in the Single Tax.\u00a0His ancestor [Physiocrat Pierre Samuel duPont] had the philosophy before I was born.[21. Hauser, “A.B. duPont.” The French Physiocrats of the late-eighteenth century, of whom Pierre Samuel duPont was a prominent member, argued, among other things, that all wealth originated with the land; see Max Beer,\u00a0An Inquiry Into Physiocracy<\/em>\u00a0(London: Frank Cass & Co., 1966).]<\/p>\n

Within a short time Henry George was staying with the duPonts on his visits to Detroit.\u00a0Ermann duPont\u2019s wife, Mary Ethel, later recalled how the couple\u2019s young daughters would\u00a0playfully pin flowers on George\u2019s hat and clothing as he conversed with their father, then giggle\u00a0with affection as the absent-minded reformer rode away on his bicycle, oblivious to his\u00a0ridiculous appearance.[22. Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”] George died in 1897, but duPont and Tom Johnson remained true to\u00a0their friend\u2019s memory, determined to do all they could in the causes of tax reform and social\u00a0justice. Thus, as a friend of labor and an unabashed proponent of the Single Tax, A.B. duPont\u00a0entered the new century, and his new position as second vice president and general manager of\u00a0the St. Louis Transit System.[23. “DuPont Resigns,”\u00a0Detroit News,<\/em>\u00a015 December 1900, n.p., A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 1, FHS; “Mr. A.B. duPont,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 January 1901, 66.]<\/p>\n

DuPont\u2019s departure for America\u2019s Gateway City was a consequence of the sale of the\u00a0Detroit, Fort Wayne & Belle Isle Railway Company in late 1900 to a syndicate that consolidated\u00a0all existing streetcar lines into a new company, the Detroit United Railway (DUR). Tom\u00a0Johnson, having sold his interests, left for Cleveland, where he planned to run for mayor.\u00a0DuPont retained a part-time position as \u201cconsulting engineer\u201d to the DUR; he also maintained\u00a0his ties to Detroit by remaining part owner of an interurban line, the Wyandotte & Detroit River\u00a0Railroad.[24. “Consolidation in Detroit,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a012 January 1901, 90; “Consolidation in Detroit,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 January 1901, 56; “The Electric Railways of Detroit,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 March 1901, 180; O’Geran,\u00a0History of the Detroit Street Railways,<\/em>\u00a0189-90; “A.B. duPont Goes to St. Louis.”]<\/p>\n

Turn-of-the-century St. Louis was a natural magnet for the talents of A.B. duPont. It was\u00a0home to some of America\u2019s largest manufacturers of street railway cars and related equipment,\u00a0and the St. Louis Transit System, created in 1899, boasted one of the highest ridership rates in\u00a0the nation. But the city\u2019s railways had long been plagued with labor troubles, and St. Louis had\u00a0experienced a particularly violent 56-day strike in the spring of 1900, described in a\u00a0contemporary account as \u201cone of the greatest clashes that has ever occurred between capital\u00a0and labor.\u201d The strike had crippled employee morale and created a negative public image for\u00a0the company. Poor service caused by the strike lingered on once the work stoppage ended, and\u00a0outmoded equipment and dirty cars exacerbated the situation. Thus, the company turned to a\u00a0man whose \u201cpractical as well as theoretical knowledge of all things pertaining to the operation\u00a0of a street railway is well known.\u201d[25. “Street Car Systems of St. Louis, Mo.,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a0January 1890, 56-59; “The St. Louis Strike,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a015 July 1900, 375; “St. Louis,”\u00a0Street Railway Review<\/em>, 15 January 1901, 21; “Manufacturers and Supply Houses of St. Louis Prominent in the Electric Railway Field,”\u00a0Street Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a020 September 1904, 650-51; James Adkins, “Farewell,” and Mort Jourdan, “Our Guest,” from duPont testimonial dinner, St. Louis Mercantile Club, 22 April 1907, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 7, FHS; “Will Leave”; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”]<\/p>\n

In barely three years General Manager duPont rejuvenated the St. Louis Transit System.\u00a0A colleague later reminisced that \u201cit took only a short time with his pencil to solve . . . many of\u00a0the intricate problems that were brought before him. He was ready to accept any new idea and\u00a0with equal readiness find means to put it in operation.\u201d[26. Jourdan, “Our Guest.’] Others noted A.B. duPont\u2019s mastery\u00a0of every facet of street railway operations in St. Louis, \u201cfrom the handling of the affairs of a\u00a0great corporation and laying of power houses, car equipment, road beds, shops, and . . . even\u00a0the putting up of trolley wires.\u201d[27. Untitled statement of Chicago mayor Edward F. Dunne, duPont testimonial dinner, 22 April 1907, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 7, FHS.] And, just as he had done in Detroit, duPont eliminated labor\u00a0animosities through his willingness to cooperate with unions; his tenure was marked by a\u00a0complete absence of any strikes which, coupled with improved service, restored the company\u2019s\u00a0good standing with the public. By the time duPont resigned his position in 1904 to return to\u00a0Detroit, the St. Louis Transit System had earned a reputation for providing \u201cthe best streetcar\u00a0service in the United States.\u201d[28. Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; Jourdan, “Our Guest.”]<\/p>\n

In Detroit from 1904 to 1906, A.B. duPont served as president of the Seamless Steel\u00a0Bathtub Company, while overseeing his interurban line. He also continued to work on new\u00a0inventions, among them a mechanized farm vehicle; duPont\u2019s sister later suggested that he\u00a0might have given this idea to Henry Ford, resulting in the first tractor. By this time he had also\u00a0began to exhibit some unusual personal characteristics, particularly extreme single-mindedness,\u00a0as he would lock onto an idea and become oblivious to all else. DuPont\u2019s Detroit friends once\u00a0played a prank by engaging him in conversation over dinner, during which every course\u00a0consisted entirely of mashed potatoes. So focused was duPont in making his points, he never\u00a0noticed what he was eating, and never commented on the food. It was also not uncommon for\u00a0duPont to be so deep in thought that he would walk past associates, even family members,\u00a0without acknowledging them. Mary Ethel duPont told of once sitting near her husband on a streetcar leaving downtown Detroit and saying nothing, curious at how long it would take him\u00a0to recognize her. Not until they disembarked in front of the family\u2019s suburban residence did he\u00a0realize they had been on the same car.[29. Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; statement of Edward F. Dunne, 22 April 1907.]<\/p>\n

DuPont soon expanded his interest in streetcars from purely technical and managerial\u00a0aspects to the movement for municipal ownership. He had been introduced to the idea by\u00a0Hazen Pingree during his first stay in Detroit. In 1906 Chicago\u2019s reform mayor Edward Dunne\u00a0called on duPont to help arbitrate a price for the sale of the privately owned street railway\u00a0system to the city. These negotiations eventually failed, but duPont enhanced his reputation as\u00a0a street railway expert, earning the respect of Chicago city officials as well as representatives of\u00a0the private company. Fittingly, in the spring of 1906, Mayor Tom L. Johnson once again asked\u00a0for his friend\u2019s assistance, this time in the creation of a municipally operated street railway in\u00a0Cleveland.[30. “A.B. duPont for Chicago,” unidentified newspaper clipping, A.B. duPont Papers, Scrapbook, Folder 17, FHS; John D. Buenker, “Edward F. Dunne: The Limits of Municipal Reform,” in Paul M. Green and Melvin G. Holli, eds.,\u00a0The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition,<\/em>\u00a0rev. ed. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995), 34-40; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”]<\/p>\n

Elected mayor as a Democrat in 1901, Johnson had battled \u201cprivileged\u201d interests, most\u00a0notably Cleveland\u2019s privately owned street railways, with the goal of creating a low fare,\u00a0publicly operated system. Most of the city\u2019s lucrative streetcar lines had been franchised to\u00a0entrepreneurs on a street-by-street basis in the 1880s, usually for a twenty-year period. As most\u00a0of the franchises were due to expire, the mayor planned to convert the lines into a municipally\u00a0owned operation, pledged to a fare of three cents. Ohio laws forbade direct public ownership of\u00a0street railways, so Johnson copied an idea he had learned in his encounters with Detroit\u2019s\u00a0Mayor Pingree: grant the new franchises to a technically private company, but one whose\u00a0directorate consisted of political and ideological associates.[31. On Johnson’s crusade for municipal ownership of the Cleveland street railways, see\u00a0My Story,<\/em>\u00a0237-94; Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0197-265; and Robert H. Bremner, “The Street Railway Controversy in Cleveland,”\u00a0American Journal of Economics and Sociology<\/em>\u00a010 (January 1951), 185-206.]<\/p>\n

In June 1906 Tom Johnson appointed A.B. duPont president and general manager of\u00a0Municipal Traction, a holding company created for the two three-cent municipally operated\u00a0lines the mayor had created since 1903. Dozens of court injunctions filed by the privately\u00a0owned Cleveland Electric Railway Company, popularly known as \u201cConcon,\u201d had delayed\u00a0implementation of the mayor\u2019s plan, and legal battles continued throughout the summer. Undeterred, duPont busily purchased cars, hired motormen and conductors, laid new track,\u00a0and hung power lines. \u201cSo busy he makes a whirlwind look like an idler,\u201d duPont gained a\u00a0reputation as a \u201chuman steam engine,\u201d who \u201cwould sleep on [his] desk if he could.\u201d He met\u00a0daily with Johnson for a morning conference, lunch, and dinner, to devise strategies for\u00a0winning the city\u2019s battles with Concon, and to plan for the day when the first municipally\u00a0operated three-cent car would run.[32. Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0201; “New Line Will Have the Call,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em>, 24 June 1906, Part II, 1; “To Rush 3-fer Cars Through,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a024 October 1906, 9; “Two Fine Cars Are Speeding Towards City for 3-fer,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a029 October 1906, 2; “Two Cars Reach City; To Operate Thursday,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a031 October 1906, 1-2; “Traction Developments in Cleveland,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a0July 1906, 431-32; “Around the Clock With a Human Steam Engine,” and “A.B. duPont’s Daily Dose,” unidentified clippings, n.d., A.B. duPont Papers, Scrapbook, Folder 17, FHS.]<\/p>\n

That day arrived on November 1, 1906, after Concon had exhausted its last injunction\u00a0against Municipal Traction. Johnson and duPont each purchased five dollars worth of three-cent\u00a0tickets, and gave them away to bystanders who \u201calmost tore the clothes off the two men in\u00a0[their] mad rush to get the souvenirs.\u201d At duPont\u2019s invitation, the mayor served as the\u00a0motorman on the first three-cent car, which bore the symbolic number \u201c3331.\u201d[33. “May Ride for 3 Cents Today,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a01 November 1906, 1-2; “3 Cent Fare at Last,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a01 November 1906, 1; “Hosts Cheer as First Car Runs,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a02 November 1906, 1, 9; James A. Toman and Blaine S. Hays,\u00a0Horse Trails to Regional Rails: The Story of Public Transit in Cleveland<\/em>\u00a0(Kent, OH, and London: Kent State University Press), 70-71; Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0203-04.] The events in\u00a0Cleveland drew nationwide attention, and in the following days high profile visitors, including\u00a0Chicago\u2019s Mayor Dunne and Single Tax champion Louis Post, accompanied duPont and\u00a0Johnson on rides aboard the \u201cThree-fer\u201d streetcar line.[34. “Chicago Mayor Has 3-Cent Ride,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a06 November 1906, 4. Louis Post published\u00a0The Public<\/em>, America’s most important Single Tax publication during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Tom Johnson had long been Post’s main benefactor, helping to finance\u00a0The Public<\/em>\u00a0and other Single Tax publications; see Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland<\/em>, 27.] Throughout the spring and summer of\u00a01907, A.B. duPont engaged in a series of frustrating and often-acrimonious meetings with\u00a0Concon officials, attempting to negotiate the sale of the entire system to Municipal Traction.\u00a0The company was merely biding its time, hoping for the election of an anti-municipal\u00a0ownership mayor in November, but Johnson\u2019s overwhelming reelection forced Concon into\u00a0serious negotiations, and the property officially changed ownership on April 27, 1908. Tom\u00a0Johnson had reached the apex of his political career, an achievement made possible by the\u00a0expertise of his friend, Ermann duPont. The joy of the men was short-lived, however, due to an\u00a0impending labor impasse.[35. “Cleveland Traction Developments,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a012 January 1907, 55; “A Holding Company in Cleveland,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a019 January 1907, 66-67; “Disagreement on Valuation of Cleveland Electric Railway,”Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a030 March 1907, 432-33. There are regular accounts of the complicated negotiations between Municipal Traction and Concon published inElectric Railway Review<\/em>\u00a0and other street railway trade journals throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1907.<\/p>\n

“Negotiations Between A.B. duPont and Henry Davies, Arbitrators, October 3, 1907,” A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 8, FHS; “The Cleveland Situation,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a02 November 1907, 742; “Mayor Tom Johnson is a Winner,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a06 November 1907, 1; “Tom L. Johnson Re-elected Mayor of Cleveland,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a09 November 1907, 770; “Rides, Rides, Rides, Does Joyous City,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a029 April 1908, 3; Toman and Hayes,\u00a0Horse Trails to Regional Rails,<\/em>\u00a073-74; Eugene C. Murdock, “Cleveland’s Johnson: The Burton Campaign,”\u00a0American Journal of Economics and Sociology<\/em>\u00a015 (July 1956), 405-24, and\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0206-31.]<\/p>\n

When Municipal Traction absorbed Concon, it had also inherited a labor contract\u00a0negotiated between the old company and Division 268 of the Amalgamated Association, which\u00a0provided a higher rate of pay than that earned by the men employed by Johnson\u2019s original low\u00a0are company, who were represented by Division 245 of the Association. Despite their reputation for amicable labor relations, Johnson and duPont now acted out of character and\u00a0insisted that all men work under the Division 245 contract. Rather than accept a pay cut, the\u00a0members of Division 268 went on strike in May 1908, resulting in one of the most violent weeks\u00a0in Cleveland history, marked by widespread vandalism of Municipal Traction property and\u00a0beatings of strikebreakers by angry mobs. But it was all for naught, as duPont refused to\u00a0negotiate, even turning down an overture from his old friend, Amalgamated Association\u00a0president W.D. Mahon. When the walkout ended in failure, approximately 1200 men lost their\u00a0jobs.[36. “The Cleveland Electric Ry. Co. and Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes (sic) of America Division No. 268, Memorandum of Agreement, Cleveland, O., December 22nd, 1906,” Pamphlet c1646, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH; “Strike Threatened in Cleveland,”Electric Railway Review<\/em>, 9 May 1908, 578; “The Progress of the Municipal Traction Company of Cleveland,”\u00a0Street Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a016 May 1908, 833; “Strike in Cleveland,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a023 May 1908, 630-31; Bremner, “Street Railway Controversy in Cleveland,” 198; Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0233-38; “Report of the Grievance Committee on the Street Railway Strike,”\u00a0Cleveland Citizen,<\/em>\u00a02 May 1908, 13 June 1908, n.p. The\u00a0Citizen<\/em>\u00a0was the official newspaper of Cleveland’s United Trades and Labor Council. For a detailed account of the reactions of Johnson and duPont to the labor troubles of 1908, and the subsequent damage to Johnson’s career, see Arthur E. DeMatteo, “The Downfall of a Progressive: Mayor Tom L. Johnson and the Cleveland Streetcar Strike of 1908,”\u00a0Ohio History<\/em>\u00a0104 (Winter-Spring 1995), 24-41.]<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for duPont and Johnson, the now-unemployed members of Division 268,\u00a0seeking revenge and hoping to regain their jobs, circulated petitions and gathered enough\u00a0signatures to place on the ballot a referendum to rescind Tom Johnson\u2019s franchise for Municipal\u00a0Traction. Cleveland\u2019s voters, blaming Johnson for poor service caused by the strike, approved\u00a0the measure in October 1908. Placed in receivership, the company began hiring back the\u00a0discharged strikers and, in a move which the union men must have seen as poetic justice,\u00a0retained duPont at a salary of $6000 per year, considerably less than the $15,000 pay he had\u00a0earned under Johnson. The mayor, meanwhile, lost his reelection bid in 1909 and, drained by\u00a0his political battles, died two years later.[37. “Crowded Car at East Cleveland,”\u00a0Electric Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a05 September 1908, 599; “Security Grant, At First Thought Safe, Loses,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a023 October 1908, 1-2; “People of Cleveland Vote Against Security Franchise,”\u00a0Electric Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a031 October 1908, 1287-89; “Who Owns the Roads?,”\u00a0The Referendum,<\/em>\u00a010 October 1908, n.p., and “Antonio duPont” (sic),The Referendum,<\/em>\u00a015 July 1909, 6, anti-Tom Johnson, anti-duPont publication of municipal ownership opponents, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 9, FHS; Murdock,Tom Johnson of Cleveland,\u00a0<\/em>241-53.]<\/p>\n

It is difficult to explain the heavy-handed reaction of duPont and Johnson to the labor\u00a0complications of May 1908. The only logical conclusion is that the pair provoked the strike in\u00a0order to eliminate the union. The purchase of expensive new equipment and the business\u00a0recession of 1907-1908 combined to necessitate the implementation of strict economies in the\u00a0operation of Municipal Traction. DuPont and Johnson may have considered the removal of\u00a0over one thousand highly paid workers an unpleasant necessity in ensuring the viability of the\u00a0three-cent line. Although historian Eugene C. Murdock has written that duPont \u201cthirsted for\u00a0the fight\u201d and was \u201cdeficient in basic common sense,\u201d Elizabeth Hauser\u2019s observation that\u00a0duPont\u2019s devotion to Tom Johnson made him \u201cnot only willing, but eager, to assume the\u00a0responsibility for all unpopular acts which seemed necessary,\u201d is probably a more accurate\u00a0assessment; in later years the Amalgamated Association continued to blame duPont for the\u00a0strike, rather than Johnson. In this case the unpopular, but necessary, act for DuPont was the\u00a0destruction of Division 268. Whatever the interpretation, the 1908 Cleveland streetcar strike\u00a0and its aftermath marked the low point in the otherwise distinguished careers of Tom Johnson\u00a0and A.B. duPont.[38. Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0239; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.” Historians studying Johnson and the 1908 strike tend to defend the mayor, placing the blame on “privileged” interests which supposedly encouraged and financed the strikers, particularly during the ensuing petition drive. Unfortunately, these interpretations usually rely on Johnson’s autobiography, contemporary accounts written by the mayor’s associates, or the pro-Johnson\u00a0Cleveland Press.<\/em>\u00a0However, no documentary evidence has ever surfaced to indicate that the streetcar men were doing anything but acting independently and in their own interest.]<\/p>\n

DuPont soon resigned his position with Municipal Traction and began experimenting\u00a0with new forms of public transportation. As early as 1907 he had noted that Cleveland was\u00a0\u201crapidly becoming a city of such size that traffic facilities other than surface lines will have to be\u00a0provided to give adequate service,\u201d and expressed his fear that the city would not reach the\u00a0vaunted one-million population mark by 1920 unless it revamped its transportation system.\u00a0Like many civic leaders throughout the country, duPont had been impressed with underground\u00a0systems in London, Paris, and New York, and he became fascinated with the idea of a subway\u00a0for Cleveland. Since the major drawback of subways was the high cost of excavation, he\u00a0designed a novel compact car, which placed its wheels at the extreme front and rear, allowing it\u00a0to be lowered to within a few inches of the ground. Consequently, the car was a mere six-and-one-half-feet in height, large enough for even the tallest person in a seated position, in contrast\u00a0to the fourteen feet commonly used by subways at the time. The resultant smaller diameter\u00a0tube, duPont reasoned, would cut the cost of construction in half.[39. “Cleveland Traction Situation,”\u00a0Electric Railway Review,<\/em>\u00a02 March 1907, 301; “City, Ending Great Decade, Presses to Million Mark,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a01 January 1910, 1, 12; “Million Club is Gaining Strength,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a02 January 1910, 2B; “Cross Section of the duPont Subway,” blueprint, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 5, FHS; “United States Patent Office. Antoine B. duPont, of Cleveland, Ohio. Car Adapted for Subway Use. (Patent number) 945,247. Patented Jan. 4, 1910.” A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 6, FHS; Alan C. Thompson to duPont, 30 August 1910, containing clipping, “To Cheapen Tube Railways,”Toronto Globe<\/em>, 26 August 1910, n.p., A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 7, FHS; “A Few Salient Facts About Cleveland and Its Subway Program,” unidentified document, apparently written by duPont and distributed by the Cleveland Underground Rapid Transit Railroad Company, ca. 1911, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 7, FHS; A.B. duPont, “The Transportation Problems of Greater Cleveland,” n.d., n.p., A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 13, FHS; “Public Demand for Subways,”Electric Railway Journal,<\/em>\u00a017 August 1912, 1.]<\/p>\n

DuPont and railroad expert W.R. Hopkins assembled a group of investors in 1909 to\u00a0form the Cleveland Underground Rapid Transit Railroad Company. The group proposed\u00a0constructing, at its own expense, both a \u201chigh level\u201d and \u201clow level\u201d subway. The high level\u00a0system would permit use of the duPont car, while the low level system would utilize\u00a0conventional equipment, with tunnels large enough to \u201cprovide for the delivery of freight cars\u00a0into the basements of stores in the business district.\u201d The company pledged to begin its\u00a0program no later than June 1912, with construction of a duPont-style subway under busy Euclid\u00a0Avenue, starting at Public Square and projecting five-and-one-half miles east to University\u00a0Circle. Impressed by the proposal, Cleveland\u2019s city council granted the company permission to\u00a0begin construction, contingent upon voter approval in a referendum scheduled for November\u00a01910.[40. “The Cleveland Subway Company, Cleveland, Ohio, December 1910,” prospectus, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 2, FHS; “Memorandum of Agreement, Cleveland, Ohio, 26 July 1912,” between duPont and Hopkins, for creation of the Cleveland Underground Rapid Transit Railroad Company, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 6, FHS; “A Few Salient Facts About Cleveland and Its Subway Program”; “Subways Win by Large Majorities,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a09 November 1910, 4. DuPont’s partner, W.R. Hopkins, would later become Cleveland City Manager in the 1920s; the city’s airport is named for him. See Van Tassel and Grabowski,Dictionary of Cleveland Biography,<\/em>\u00a0226.]<\/p>\n

The centerpiece of the company\u2019s campaign for approval of the referendum was a\u00a0prototype model subway constructed by duPont near Cleveland\u2019s Luna Park. Unveiled in\u00a0August, the duPont subway was an immediate sensation, as hundreds of people per day\u00a0ventured across the street from the amusement park to enjoy free demonstration rides. The\u00a0Cleveland Leader reported on the unique features of the futuristic subway, including its closeness\u00a0to the ground, which eliminated the chance of people being pinned underneath, and the\u00a0elimination of the dangerous \u201cthird rail,\u201d since the duPont cars were powered by an\u00a0underground electric cable. Throughout the summer and fall of 1910 over 60,000 visitors\u00a0sampled the test rides, which the company advertised prominently in Cleveland\u2019s daily\u00a0newspapers.[41. DuPont to Spend $20,000 on Model Subway for Car,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a06 May 1910, 2; “New Subway Car is Demonstrated,”\u00a0Cleveland Leader,<\/em>\u00a011 August 1910, 10; “Subway Car Makes Good in Test Run,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a011 August 1910, 2; “Free Rides,” advertisement,\u00a0Cleveland Leader,\u00a0<\/em>22 October 1910, 2; “First They Said We Couldn’t, Then They Said We Wouldn’t, Now They Say We’ll Do Too Much,” advertisement,\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a022 October 1910, 13; “To the Public,” advertisement,\u00a0Cleveland Leader<\/em>, 26 October 1910, 10; “A Few Salient Facts About Cleveland and Its Subway Program.”] Despite the opposition of the still-angry streetcar men of Division 268, who\u00a0mocked the subway as \u201cduPont\u2019s Groundhog,\u201d and Cleveland News<\/em> publisher Charles Otis, who\u00a0hated Tom Johnson and all of his associates, voters overwhelmingly approved both subways.\u00a0On the evening of the referendum a triumphant A.B. duPont declared, \u201cIt looks now as though\u00a0Cleveland [will] really have 1,000,000 in 1920. The subway will make this possible.\u201d[42. “Street Car Men to Fight Subway,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a021 October 1910, 4; “Curious Angles of the Subway Grab,”\u00a0Cleveland News,<\/em>\u00a029 October 1910, 1; “The Voters Scotched This Serpent Once; Will They Let it Get Away Now?,”\u00a0Cleveland News,<\/em>\u00a031 October 1910, 1; “Gold Brick Offer of the Subway Promoters,”\u00a0Cleveland News,<\/em>\u00a03 November 1910, 1; “Both Subways Safe,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a09 November 1910, 1; “Subways Win by Large Majorities.”]<\/p>\n

This enthusiasm notwithstanding, the subway project never got off the ground. DuPont\u00a0and Hopkins had difficulty raising capital, and missed the 1912 deadline for breaking ground\u00a0on the Euclid Avenue segment. Although the city later extended the start-up date, an economic\u00a0downturn prior to World War I made it even more difficult for the company to obtain financing.\u00a0American entry into the conflict in 1917, coupled with duPont\u2019s death in 1919, meant the end of\u00a0Cleveland\u2019s first subway plan; the city never achieved a population of one million. To the\u00a0present day, many urban experts consider the failure to construct a subway to be one of the\u00a0city\u2019s seminal blunders.[43. “Favor Quick Work on Subway Tubes,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a010 November 1910, 1, 6; “Subway Vote is Possible Block,”\u00a0Cleveland News,<\/em>\u00a018 March 1912, 8; “Denies Wanting Vote on Subway,”\u00a0Cleveland News,<\/em>\u00a019 March 1912, 8; “Heart and Artery,”\u00a0Cleveland Free Times,<\/em>\u00a0on-line edition, 23-29 January 2002, n.p.; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”]<\/p>\n

As the subway plan floundered, A.B. duPont engaged in a variety of activities. One of\u00a0his saddest duties was helping to care for the terminally ill Tom Johnson, and then serving as a pallbearer when his friend died in April 1911. Later that year, as an expert in the valuation of\u00a0public utilities, duPont returned to Detroit to arbitrate a price for the city\u2019s proposed purchase\u00a0of the DUR. He also rejected suggestions that he be hired to head the Cleveland Railway\u00a0Company, an entity created by the \u201cTayler Grant\u201d of 1910, which placed the city\u2019s transit\u00a0system in technically private hands, but with strict controls on fares, enforced by a city-appointed commissioner. DuPont did serve as one of the city\u2019s arbitrators in hearings held in\u00a01913 to determine fares and a final valuation of former Concon properties. This led to yet\u00a0another controversy for duPont, as Cleveland\u2019s daily papers criticized him for charging a fee of\u00a0$5000 for less than three month\u2019s work. He indignantly refused demands that he refund part of\u00a0the money, describing his expertise as \u201cwell worth\u201d the fee. Modesty prevented duPont from\u00a0revealing to his critics that he had already donated the entire amount to charity, something\u00a0known only to his friend, Mayor Newton D. Baker.[44. “Burial of Tom L. Johnson,”\u00a0The Public<\/em>, 21 April 1911, 365; Toman and Hayes,Horse Trails to Regional Rails,<\/em>\u00a076-77, 82-85; Murdock,\u00a0Tom Johnson of Cleveland,<\/em>\u00a0274-75, 259-60; O’Geran,\u00a0History of the Detroit Street Railways,<\/em>242; “DuPont Out of Question,”\u00a0Cleveland Plain Dealer,<\/em>\u00a025 October 1911, 1; Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; “Scrapbook Regarding Contract and Arbitration Between City of Cleveland and the Cleveland Railway Company, 29 April 1913 – 10 July 1913,” A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 15, FHS; “Arbitrators Charge $5000 Each for Month’s Work,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a020 June 1913, n.p., “How Did the Arbitrators Fix the Fee?,”\u00a0Cleveland Press,<\/em>\u00a021 June 1913, n.p., and “Earned His $5,000 Arbitration Fee, Replies DuPont,”\u00a0Cleveland Leader,<\/em>\u00a023 June 1913, n.p., A.B. duPont Papers, Scrapbook, Folder 15, FHS.]<\/p>\n

In the years following Tom Johnson\u2019s death DuPont also continued to devote\u00a0considerable energy to his mentor\u2019s favorite cause, the Single Tax. He was a significant\u00a0financial contributor to various Single Tax publications, and was also a potent fundraiser. This\u00a0led to duPont\u2019s appointment, in 1911, to replace Johnson as treasurer of the Joseph Fels Fund,\u00a0an organization founded to promote the adoption of the Single Tax by American municipalities;\u00a0duPont was particularly interested in Canadian cities that had revamped their tax structure,\u00a0and attempted to convince Detroit to do likewise.[45. Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; “Promoting the Single Tax Movement,”\u00a0The Public<\/em>, 19 February 1909, 177-78; “The Joseph Fels Fund of America,”\u00a0The Public<\/em>, 14 May 1909, 466; “American Singletax Conference,”\u00a0The Public<\/em>, 1 December 1911, 1215-18; “Says Single Tax is Detroit’s Hope,”\u00a0Detroit Journal<\/em>, 10 April 1913, 6. Joseph Fels was the inventor of Fels Naptha Soap, and a major benefactor of the Single Tax crusade; see Arthur Power Dudden,\u00a0Joseph Fels and the Single-Tax Movement<\/em>\u00a0(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1971).]<\/p>\n

This position with the Fels Fund also presented duPont an opportunity to demonstrate\u00a0his enlightened racial attitude. During a meeting of the organization in Chicago, the restaurant\u00a0at the LaSalle hotel refused to serve the Fund\u2019s African American members. At the insistence of\u00a0duPont, the Fels Fund moved its meetings to a different hotel where its black members would\u00a0be treated equally. When later commended for this gesture duPont replied curtly that, \u201cI did\u00a0that on my own account. I won\u2019t let any hotel clerk tell me with whom I may or may not eat.\u00a0My freedom was involved as much as that of the colored fellows.\u201d[46. Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; “American Singletax Conference.”]<\/p>\n

DuPont, in fact, supported nearly all of the most popular causes of the Progressive Era.\u00a0In addition to promoting tax reform and civil rights, he was an early feminist. Regular visitors\u00a0to the family home on Cleveland\u2019s East 98th Street included Ohio\u2019s leading suffragist, Elizabeth\u00a0Hauser, and Florence Allen, who was destined to become America\u2019s first female state supreme\u00a0court judge and, later, its first female federal court judge. And when duPont\u2019s wife Mary Ethel\u00a0died in 1909, his sister Zara — \u201cAunt Zadie\u201d — an outspoken feminist, arrived from Louisville to\u00a0help care for the couple\u2019s three daughters. DuPont was also a free trade advocate, supporting\u00a0President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s low tariff policies, and as a pacifist he blamed the war in Europe\u00a0on men who \u201cwant to have advantage in trade over others,\u201d concluding that \u201cfree men cannot\u00a0exist until trade is free.\u201d Ermann duPont also corresponded with some of the country\u2019s most\u00a0celebrated reformers, such as Newton D. Baker, Edward Bemis, Louis Post, and Frederic Howe,\u00a0and a perusal of his personal papers reveals sundry bits of evidence of his progressive\u00a0tendencies: copies of reform periodicals, such as The Public<\/em> and Outlook<\/em>; a program from a\u00a0Cleveland speech by conservationist Gifford Pinchot; and a copy of On the Enforcement of Law in\u00a0Cities<\/em>, Toledo Mayor Brand Whitlock\u2019s call for a humane urban society.\u201d[47. Carr,\u00a0The duPonts of Delaware<\/em>, 313-18; Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; MacKay, “Ethel B. duPont,” in Kleber,\u00a0Encyclopedia of Louisville<\/em>, 258; “DuPont Burial in Kentucky”; Jeanette E. Tuve,\u00a0First Lady of the Law: Florence Ellinwood Allen<\/em>(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 32, 36; A.B. duPont, “The Cause of the European War,” 1 April 1915, and duPont to Howe, 5 December 1910, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 7, FHS; duPont to Bemis, 20 February 1915, Post to duPont, 13 March 1915, and duPont to Post, 28 May 1915, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 16, FHS; miscellaneous items, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 3, FHS.]<\/p>\n

Despite his acquaintance with people of renown, and despite his family name and\u00a0wealth, A.B. duPont practiced a non-ostentatious lifestyle. Hauser has written that \u201ccarpets and\u00a0lace curtains and elaborate house furnishings were rubbish to him.\u201d Accordingly, duPont\u00a0drove a Ford Model T, probably a 1908 model, which he claimed was the second to ever come\u00a0off the assembly line. DuPont owned the car for years, and declined to purchase a new one as\u00a0long it remained functional. At the time of his death he still drove a Ford of unknown vintage,\u00a0and Hauser commented that \u201cit would never have occurred to him to explain it or to apologize\u00a0for it.\u201d[48. Hauser, “A.B. duPont”; “A.B. duPont, the street car man, claims he has the luckiest automobile in the world,” unidentified newspaper clipping, n.d., A.B. duPont Papers, Scrapbook, Folder 17, FHS.]<\/p>\n

During the final years of his life A.B. duPont applied his energies to one project after\u00a0another. In 1915 he founded the Inventory Calculating Service in Cleveland, to provide\u00a0arbitration services to cities seeking to purchase existing public utilities for conversion to\u00a0municipal ownership. He developed a novel method for determining the worth of these\u00a0utilities, which placed a premium on their efficiency. DuPont\u2019s last major project outside of\u00a0Cleveland was the designing of a factory in Tennessee, for an industrialist seeking \u201cthe engineer\u00a0who could construct a manufacturing plant in the least possible time and in the best possible\u00a0way.\u201d And in a humorous, somewhat fitting, end to his career, duPont purchased Cleveland\u2019s\u00a0Champion Stove Company, where in 1918 he developed the top-of-the-line \u201cModel 80,\u201d a fuel-efficient\u00a0stove so futuristic and equipped with so many accessories that his own salesmen often\u00a0had difficulty operating it.[49. “DuPont Has New Valuation Plan,”\u00a0Cleveland Press<\/em>, 10 November 1915, 4; A.B. duPont,\u00a0A Method for Ascertaining the Non-Monopolistic Value of the Property of Public Utilities<\/em>\u00a0(Cleveland: 1915), A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 2, FHS; “Champion Model 80,” advertising circular, A.B. duPont Papers, Folder 2, FHS; “DuPont Burial in Kentucky”; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”]<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

On April 11, 1919, 53-year-old Antoine Bidermann duPont died at his Cleveland home\u00a0after a brief illness, a victim of the influenza pandemic.[50. “A.B. duPont, Car Inventor, Dead,”\u00a0Cleveland News<\/em>, 12 April 1919, 4; Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”] Although any mention of duPont is\u00a0usually made in connection to his more famous friend, Tom L. Johnson, his career is noteworthy\u00a0in its classic representation of the spirit of progressivism that enveloped the United States one\u00a0hundred years ago. In contrast to many reformers of the era, duPont was not an exponent of a\u00a0single cause, but instead worked at a number of projects; in this way he provides a nearprototypical\u00a0example of the progressive model proposed by Daniel Rogers. As a Single Taxer,\u00a0supporter of free trade, and crusader for municipally owned public transit systems, he fits into\u00a0the anti-monopolist \u201cidea cluster\u201d; as a pacifist, feminist, and advocate of civil rights for African\u00a0Americans, he conforms to the \u201clanguage of social bonds\u201d; and duPont\u2019s efforts to make\u00a0municipal transit more efficient and affordable for the urban masses, as well as his many\u00a0inventions and utility valuation formula, qualify him for the \u201cefficiency and rationalization\u201d\u00a0cluster.<\/p>\n

While it is an almost unpardonable sin for a historian to write that a person \u201cleft the\u00a0world a better place,\u201d this is no doubt true in the case of A.B. duPont. He was not only a superb\u00a0engineer; he was also a sincere reformer, a visionary, and a true progressive. Even his failures,\u00a0such as the duPont subway, were admirable and inspirational in their boldness. And he\u00a0performed all of his lifetime tasks with a refreshing spirit of independence and lack of concern\u00a0for the opinions of his detractors. It is difficult to dispute the conclusion of his friend, Elizabeth\u00a0Hauser, that Ermann duPont died as he had lived \u2013 \u201ca free man.\u201d[51. Hauser, “A.B. duPont.”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Arthur E. DeMatteo Attempting to synthesize the events, agents, and accomplishments of the years spanning\u00a0the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries into a neat package labeled \u201cThe Progressive\u00a0Era\u201d can prove frustrating for the modern historian. Reformers of the period were a diffuse and\u00a0diverse group, often more noteworthy for their disunity and incongruities than for coherence to\u00a0any … Continue reading Cleveland’s A.B. duPont: Engineer, Reformer, Visionary<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39846],"tags":[41838,44022,41894,41842,44030,44026],"class_list":["post-1494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-1-issue-1-fall-2002","tag-1-1","tag-a-b-dupont","tag-arthur-dematteo","tag-article","tag-progressivism","tag-reform"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1494"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1506,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions\/1506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}