by Jill Jonnes
“Cassatt reeled off the figures”: Patricia T. Davis, End of the Line: Alexander J. Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad (New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1978), p. 22.
“seemed to grasp”: Ibid.
“a natural talent”: Ibid.
“that important territory”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvana Railroad New York Tunnel Extension: Historical Outline, December 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 4. Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“You sing divinely”: Davis, End of the Line, p. 26.
“I see you now”: Ibid., p. 30.
“I had to send back”: Ibid.
“The road’s employees”: “The Pennsylvania Crowd in the Public Eye,” New York Times, June 10, 1906, pt. 3, p. 3.
“railroad managers”:Alfred Chandler: The Essential Alfred Chandler: Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business, Thomas K. McCraw, ed. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Business School Press, 1988), p. 208.
“than had occurred in”: Harold C. Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (New York: HarperCollins, 1975), pp. 31–32.
“No private enterprise”: Robert V. Bruce, 1877: Year of Violence (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1989), p. 43.
“When the master”: quoted in Walter Lord, The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 70.
“Why, it is nothing less”: Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 201.
“I thought it my duty”:Pennsylvania Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots (Harrisburg, Pa.: Lane S. Hart, 1878), p. 691.
“I went down”: Ibid., p. 692.
“They all seemed to be shouting”: Ibid., p. 693.
$5 million in prime PRR property: Bruce, 1877: Year of Violence, p. 180.
“This may be the beginning”: Paul Dickson, “The Great Railroad War of 1877,” American Heritage 29, No. 2 (February–March 1978): 56.
“Through this secret arrangement”: James Creelman, “All Is Not Damned.” Pearson’s Magazine, 15, no. 6 (June 1906): 547.
3. “THE ABLEST MAN THIS RAILWAY EVER PRODUCED”
“How do you manage”: Katharine Cassatt to A. J. Cassatt, December 7, 1881, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“When you get these pictures”: Nancy Mowll Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), p. 161.
“to have more time”: Francis Nelson Barksdale, “A. J. Cassatt,” World’s Work 2 (July 1901): 973.
“It changed my life”: Nancy Mowll Mathews, Mary Cassatt, a Life (New York: Villard, 1994), p. 114.
“The truth is”: Ibid., p. 68.
“Had to do it,”: Patricia T. Davis, End of the Line: Alexander J. Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad (New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1978), p. 99.
“We listened to any scheme”: William D. Middleton, Manhattan Gateway (Waubesha, Wis: Kalmbach Books, 1996), p. 17.
“For seventeen years”: James Creelman, “All Is Not Damned,” Pearson’s Magazine, 15, no. 6 (June 1906): 549.
“Seagram’s…only win”: A. J. Cassatt to William Patton, Feb. 5, 1894, private family papers from the estate of Mrs. William Thayer, Shoreham, Vermont.
“Mother seizes the paper”: Mary Cassatt to A. J. Cassatt September 21, 1885, and September 2, 1886, quoted Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, pp. 196 & 201.
“furnished in bird’s eye maple”: Davis, End of the Line, p. 123.
“I am glad to say”: Ibid., p. 128.
“massive elevated stone causeway”: Nathaniel Burt, Perennial Philadelphians: Anatomy of an American Aristocracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 193.
“He is by no means a genius”: Davis, End of the Line, p. 127.
“first place in world’s production”: John L. Cowan, “Freeing a City from a Railroad’s Control,” World’s Work 9 (1905): 5712.
“disaster was imminent”: George H. Burgess and Miles C. Kennedy, Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1949), p. 455.
“a droll city”: Quoted in Russell Weigley, ed. Philadelphia, A 300-Year History (New York: Norton, 1982), p. 471.
“No person understands better”: “Alexander J. Cassatt,” New York Times, June 18, 1899, p. 2.
“the most intelligent and thoughtful”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvania Railroad New York Tunnel Extension, Historical Outline, Dec. 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 17. Hagley Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
4. “THE NORTH RIVER BRIDGE MATTER”
“Permit me to suggest”: Gustav Lindenthal to A. J. Cassatt, Nov. 29, 1899, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“Your decision”: Gustav Lindenthal to A. J. Cassatt, July 11, 1900, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“The anchorages”: “The Proposed Great Bridge between New York and Jersey City,” Scientific American, March 15, 1890, p. 167.
“The grandeur of the project”: Quoted in “Bridge Across the Hudson River at New York City,” House of Representatives, 51st Cong., 1st sess., report no. 928, p. 40.
“To propose a bridge”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvania Railroad New York Tunnel Extension, Historical Outline, December 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 9, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
Though Rea had finally: J. Lawrence Lee, “Baltimore’s Belt,” Railroad History, Spring–Summer 2005, pp. 30–51.
“In 1891 I resigned my position”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvania Railroad New York Tunnel Extension, Historical Outline, December 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 13, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“I would be glad”: Ibid., p. 14.
“The railroad situation”: Ibid., p. 57.
“foot of West Thirty-fourth”: Ibid., p. 79.
“but only for small-sized cars”: Ibid., p. 80.
“back door” entry: Ibid., pp. 7–16.
“This…solves the problem”: Ibid., p. 65.
“No half-way solution”: Ibid., p. 68.
“Did you make an engagement”: Samuel Rea to A. J. Cassatt, October 24, 1899, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
PRR made no public announcement: Memorandum on Great North Bridge, September 12, 1900, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“a thing whose existence”: John Moody, The Railroad Builders (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), p. 230.
“The struggle for competitive traffic”: George H. Burgess and Miles C. Kennedy, Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1949), p. 455.
“Cassatt had not occupied”: Francis Barksdale, “The Pennsylvania Station in New York,” carton 146, folder 10, Samuel Rea Papers, PRR Archives, Accession 1810, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“through the great volume”: M. M. Bosworth to A. Carnegie, May 4, 1907, Andrew Carnegie Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Bosworth wrote this after Carnegie criticized the conduct of other millionaires active in the stock market. Bosworth was bitter because he had worked for Carnegie for twenty years securing secret rebates, but Carnegie had failed to share “the swag.”
“Mr. Cassat’s [sic] action”: Andrew Carnegie to Charles Schwab, October 9, 1900, Andrew Carnegie Papers, Manuscript Divsion, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
“Overworked engines failed”: C. M. Keys, “Cassatt and His Vision,” World’s Work, July 1910, p. 13199.
“You have returned to harness”: Andrew Carnegie to A. J. Cassatt, Dec. 31, 1900, Andrew Carnegie Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
“Carnegie is going to demoralize”: Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), p. 784.
“a twenty-fifth of the whole national wealth”: Andrew Sinclair, Corsair: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (New York.: Little, Brown, 1981), p. 125.
> “Pierpont Morgan is apparently trying”: Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 405.
“We have trampled out”: James Creelman, “All Is Not Damned,” Pearson’s Magazine 15, no. 6 (June 1906): 552.
5. “A SEVERE DISAPPOINTMENT”
“The Pennsylvania Railroad is”: “North River Bridge Plan,” New York Times, June 26, 1901, 6:7.
“Heat was so intense”: “Heat Brings Death To Over 200 Persons,” New York Times, July 3, 1901, p. 1.
“all the trunk lines,”Wall Street Journal, July 6, 1901.
“the financial syndicate”: Gustav Lindenthal to A. J. Cassatt, September 21, 1901, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“in bad repute”: Charles F. Adams, An Autobiography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 193.
“he was the soul of chivalry”: “The Career of Mr. Baldwin,” Review of Reviews 31, 2 (February 1905): 142.
“freight depots”: George H. Burgess and Miles C. Kennedy, Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1949), p. 474.
“quite a remarkable faculty”: “William. H. Baldwin, Jr.” American National Biography (New York.: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 68.
“I just want to write a line”:The Booker T. Washington Papers, ed. Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, vol. 5, 1899–1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), p. 236.
“That an army of strumpets”: John Graham Brooks, An American Citizen: The Life of William Henry Baldwin, Jr. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910), p. 255.
“fear of ridicule,” Ibid., p. 257.
“You see how impossible”: George F. Baer to A. J. Cassatt, June 18, 1901, carton 2, folder 39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“If the Pennsylvania R.R. desired”: Samuel Rea to A. J. Cassatt, carton 102, folder 32, Memorandum December 16, 1901, p. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“I should very much”: A. J. Cassatt to John M. Hall, president New Haven line, telegram, July 3, 1901, President’s Telegram Letterpress Book, no. 2, p. 203, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
6. “IT MIGHT OFFER THE SOLUTION”
“To the great majority of visitors”: “The Park Pay Chairs,” New York Times, July 10, 1901, p. 6.
“After all it is a work of art”: Nancy Mowll Mathews, Mary Cassatt, a Life (New York: Villard, 1994), p. 171.
“Business very good”: William Patton to A. J. Cassatt, Aug. 15, 1901, President’s Telegram Letterpress Book, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“No disorder,” Ibid.
“The inability to carry out”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvania Railroad New York Tunnel Extension, Historical Outline, December 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 20, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“he was much impressed”: Ibid.
“I believed it was”: Ibid.
“It was my duty”: Ibid.
“Give me a plant”: Zach McGhee, “Charles M. Jacobs,” World’s Work 9 (January 1905): 5965.
“Seldom has a construction”: Gosta E. Sandstrom, Tunnels (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963), p. 211.
“She seems to dwarf”: “Mighty Celtic Arrives,” New-York Tribune, Aug. 5, 1901, p. 3.
“this object”: Francis Barksdale, “The Pennsylvania Station in New York,” Samuel Rea Papers, PRR Archives, Accession 1810, carton 146, folder 10, Hagley Museum and Library Wilmington, Delaware.
7. “GET A LITTLE OF THE TENDERLOIN”
“I am an anarchist”: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” New York Times, September 8, 1901, p. 1.
“Now look—that damned cowboy,” Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 30.
“Do you know that man”: Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States, America Finding Herself 1900–1925 vol. 2 (New York: Scribner’s, 1927), p. 367.
“We immediately started”: Samuel Rea, Pennsylvania Railroad New York Tunnel Extension, Historical Outline, December 15, 1909 (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 21, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“Last week Mr. Samuel Rea”: Gustav Lindenthal to A. J. Cassatt, Sept. 21, 1901, carton 2, folder 2/39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“Even a slight settlement”: Ibid.
“the iron tunnel lining”: Ibid.
“exposed to the danger”: Ibid.
“A bridge is more”: Ibid.
“expensive to maintain”: “Bridge Across the Hudson River at New York City,” House of Representatives, 51st Cong., 1st sess., report no. 928, p. 37.
“The bridge is specially designed”: Gustav Lindenthal to A. J. Cassatt, Sept. 21, 1901, carton 2, folder 2/39, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“with the complete plan”: “Discussion: New York Tunnels, Pennsylvania Railroad Company,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 69 October 1910): 402.
“given up to the French”: E. Idell Zeisloft, ed., The New Metropolis (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1899), p. 628.
“As much property as possible”: Samuel Rea to A. J. Cassatt, memorandum, December 16, 1901, p. 2, carton 102, folder 32, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pa.
a hundred known whorehouses: Timothy J. Gilfoyle, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), p. 201.
“I’ve been living on”: Luc Sante, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (New York: Vintage: 1992), p. 17.
“cheap, low-class”: William. Baldwin to A. J. Cassatt. Memo, October 14, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1 v. 2 PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“decent, respectable but cheap”: Ibid.
“drinking places”: Zeisloft, New Metropolis, p. 626.
“center for the criminal classes”: W. T. Stead, Satan’s Invisible World Displayed (New York: Arno Press, 1974 [1902]), p. 81.
“a good class of apartment”: William. Baldwin to A. J. Cassatt. Memo, October 14, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1 v. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“Rule No. 1”: Richard Butler and Joseph Driscoll, Dock Walloper: The Story of “Big Dick” Butler (New York: Putnam, 1933), p. 113.
“on a salary of $2,750 a year”: “Williams on the Stand,” New York Times, December 29, 1894, p. 6.
“I’m so well known”: “Williams Denies All,” New York Times, December 27, 1894, p. 2.
8. “CROOKED AND GREEDY”
“Like many other millionaires”: Lloyd Morris, Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life of the Last Hundred Years (New York: Random House, 1951), p. 229.
“Croker’s greatest fun”: Lothrop Stoddard, Master of Manhattan: The Life of Richard Croker (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1931), p. 169.
“Think of the hundreds of foreigners”: Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities (New York: Hill & Wang, 1965 [1904]), p. 205.
“They speak pleasant words”: Ibid.
“a small figure”: William Allen White, Masks in a Pageant (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1971 [1928]), pp. 57–58.
“use his political position”: Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (New York: Macmillan, 1913) p. 301.
“Then you are working”: New York State Legislature, Report of the Special Assembly Committee to Investigate the Public Offices and Departments of the City of New York (Albany: New York State Printing Office, 1900), I:353.
“There are more gambling houses”: Ibid., 1591.
“Touchin’ on the question of gambling”: City Club of New York, Ten Months of Tammany (New York: City Club, October 1901), p. 30.
“Last fall there arose in this city”: “Cheers for Mr. Carnegie,” New York Times, March 18, 1901, p. 3.
“honest graft”: William Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (New York: Signet Classics, 1996), p. 3.
“four or five houses of ill fame”: Committee of Fifteen, 19th Precinct Reports, Box 19-20, Humanities—Manuscripts & Ar
chives Division, New York Public Library.
“The girl in there”: Alfred Hodder, “Fight for the City,” Outlook 73 (January 31, 1903): 254–5.
“If the people find anything is wrong”: Stoddard, Master of Manhattan, p. 229.
“would find his business responsibilities”: People’s Institute et al., A Memorial to William Henry Baldwin, Jr. Cooper Union, Sunday, February Fifth, 1905 New York: DeVinne Press, 1905), p. 12.
“I have taken up this work”: Ibid.
“She got on the bed”: Committee of Fifteen, 19th Precinct Reports, Box 19-20. Humanities—Manuscripts & Archives Division, New York Public Library.
9. “SOMEONE IN THE PENN IS LEAKING”
“From early morning”: Lothrop Stoddard, Master of Manhattan: The Life of Richard Croker (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1931), p. 252.
“The purchase of that property”: A. J. Cassatt to Samuel Rea, phone message, November 8, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“We have gone systematically”: Douglas Robinson to A. J. Cassatt, November 13, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“There has been so much talk”: Samuel Rea to A. J. Cassatt, November 13, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“Do you not think”: Ibid.
“The actual work”: Recollections of Douglas Robinson, 1910, Samuel Rea Papers, Accession 1810, carton 149, folder 7, PRR Archives, Hagley Museum and Archives, Wilmington, Delaware.
“The owners being of moderate”: Ibid.
“If his price”: Ibid.
“I’m afraid someone”: Douglas Robinson to William Baldwin, Nov. 21, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“Within two weeks”: Recollections of Douglas Robinson, 1910, Samuel Rea Papers, Accession 1810, carton 149, folder 7, PRR Archives, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
“It may be well”: William Baldwin to A. J. Cassatt, November 21, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“real estate dealers”: “Reported P.R.R. Purchase,” New-York Tribune, Dec. 1, 1901, p. 7
“The reports about land”: William Baldwin to A. J. Cassatt, Dec. 2, 1901, carton 15, folder 32/1, vol. 2, PRR Archives, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.