John J. Raskob papers 0473 This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on September 14, 2021. Description is written in: English. Describing Archives: A Content Standard Manuscripts and Archives PO Box 3630 Wilmington, Delaware 19807 [email protected] URL: http://www.hagley.org/library John J. Raskob papers 0473 Table of Contents Summary Information .................................................................................................................................... 3 Biographical Note .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Scope and Content ....................................................................................................................................... 15 Arrangement ................................................................................................................................................. 15 Administrative Information .......................................................................................................................... 15 Controlled Access Headings ........................................................................................................................ 16 Collection Inventory ..................................................................................................................................... 16 - Page 2 - John J. Raskob papers 0473 Summary Information Repository: Manuscripts and Archives Creator: Raskob, John J. (John Jakob), 1879-1950 Title: John J. Raskob papers ID: 0473 Date [inclusive]: 1900-1956 Physical Description: 300 Linear Feet Language of the English . Material: Abstract: The collection documents Raskob's business and political careers as well as his personal life. The papers document significant aspects of the histories of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company and the General Motors Corporation during the first half of the twentieth century. ^ Return to Table of Contents Biographical Note John J. (Jakob) Raskob was born on March 19, 1879, in Lockport, New York. His parents, John and Anna Frances (Moran) Raskob, were the children of immigrants. By the time of Raskob's birth, his father had established a successful cigar-production business in the city. By his own account, Raskob enjoyed a comfortable and enjoyable childhood in Lockport, at that time a thriving city along the Erie Canal and an important transit point for Great Lakes shipping. Raskob's studies at Lockport's parochial and public schools were enlivened by participation in local theater, explorations of the local countryside and vineyards, and regular part-time work as a newspaper-delivery boy and in seasonal agriculture. Lockport had a well-established Catholic community, and Raskob took part in many of its religious and social activities. He stayed connected with classmates and fellow-parishioners for many years. John J. Raskob graduated from high school and entered a local business school. In June of 1898, his father died after a brief illness (complicated by a misdiagnosis of typhoid fever). The family had some financial resources but young John was the eldest of four siblings and his sisters and brother were still in school, so he chose to abandon his education in order to support his family. Raskob began the secretarial career which would eventually put him in the world of du Pont family heir Pierre S. du Pont. Raskob first began secretarial work--at the time a common profession for men--with a Lockport lawyer and family friend, John E. Pound. This work was occasional, however, and Raskob soon took permanent positions--first with the Holly Manufacturing Company in Lockport and then as a stenographer for - Page 3- John J. Raskob papers 0473 Arthur Moxham, of the Lorain Steel Company (formerly the Johnson Company) in Lorain, Ohio, west of Cleveland on Lake Erie. He moved with Moxham to his employer's new company, Dominion Iron & Steel Company, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Moxham, the various Johnson Company enterprises, and the du Pont family had long-standing financial and personal connections. One of the most dynamic Johnson Company entrepreneurs was Tom Johnson, who as an unschooled but quick-witted 15-year-old had been employed by Pierre S. du Pont's uncle and guardian Alfred Victor du Pont as a bookkeeper, and had gone on to play a critical role in building the successful and innovative company. Pierre S. du Pont's inheritance of Johnson Company stock had been partly brokered by Tom Johnson and had brought the young industrialist a measure of financial independence. Tom Johnson also persuaded du Pont to take up the presidency of the Johnson Company in 1899 in order to oversee its reorganization and then liquidation following the sale of its steel assets to Federal Steel. Perhaps Johnson's example was in mind when du Pont considered Raskob's application for a position as stenographer and bookkeeper in the summer of 1900. Both Moxham and Pound strongly recommended the young man, and du Pont hired Raskob in August. By this time, Pierre S. du Pont had completed the reorganization of the Johnson Company and its continuing liquidation had become a routine endeavor. DuPont had been refining a business model for bond-financed consolidation and reorganization of street railways and was ready to put the plan into practice. He expected to spend considerable time traveling in pursuit of a suitable market for this project and, as a result, believed it would be more proper to have a male secretary. By the time negotiations began to buy two street railways in Dallas, Texas, in March 1901, du Pont had already developed an appreciation for Raskob's insight and facility with numbers. He allowed his young secretary to take a role in the negotiations. Raskob accompanied Pierre S. du Pont to Wilmington in 1902 after du Pont's unexpected succession to leadership of the family business that had alienated him a decade before. Pierre became one of the triumvirate of young du Ponts hastily formed after Alfred I. du Pont's impulsive bid to save the company from being sold to competitors following the death of company president Eugene du Pont. As private secretary to the new treasurer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Raskob assisted with the financial and organizational restructuring and powder-industry consolidation that consumed much of Pierre's efforts in his first few years at the new company. In 1904, Raskob became Pierre S. du Pont's assistant in du Pont's new position as treasurer of the newly formed E.I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company and traveled extensively with his employer. DuPont and Raskob visited San Francisco in 1904 to transact urgent business with the California Powder Company. From December 1904 until May 1905, Raskob and du Pont, along with other young company executives, traveled to Britain and France and then to Valparaiso, Chile, to negotiate the purchase of nitrates for the company. This was Raskob's first experience with foreign travel, which he would enjoy to the last year of his life. During these busy and productive years, Raskob moved his mother and siblings to Wilmington. The family lived together at various locations in the city, including homes on Adams Street and on Gilpin Avenue. Raskob attended a number of Catholic churches in Wilmington, and it was at St. Mary's Church on Union Street that he first encountered Helena Springer Green. Helena was well educated, descended from some of the first Catholic settlers of Maryland, and a music lover who played the organ at St. Mary's Sunday services. Family tradition holds that Raskob, in order to catch the eye of the young organist, paid a substantial bribe to the organ-bellows operator in order to take the boy's place near her - Page 4- John J. Raskob papers 0473 and thereby effect an introduction. The couple were married on June 18, 1906, and the first of their thirteen children was born the following March. During these early years Raskob carefully supplemented his salary through his first forays into the stock market. With his first-hand knowledge of prospects for the powder industry, he financed the first of his many investments in Eastern Dynamite and the new DuPont powder company through bank loans and personal loans from Pierre. These initial investments formed the basis of his eventual fortune. His growing wealth and close association with the du Pont family and the company brought Raskob an increasing (and perhaps unwelcome) social prominence in Wilmington, and he was frequently sought out to lend his name to city charities. His philanthropy grew with his wealth during this period; Raskob became an increasingly important benefactor to a number of local charities, particularly those involved in the relief of families and orphans, and to campaigns by various Catholic churches in the city. Raskob also gave widely, and discreetly, to needy individuals. During his first ten years with the reorganized company, Raskob's primary role included supporting the endeavors and strategies of his employer. He was also open to new opportunities and pursued them as time and resources allowed. He was part-owner of the Bee Hive Company, a stationery and tobacco store that operated out of the new DuPont Building on Wilmington's Market Street, and also invested in a few small agricultural concerns in Delaware and Florida. Raskob's fortunes continued to rise with the company and with Pierre S. du Pont's ascendancy within it. A period of diversification and reorganization in the company