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Mary Coolidge Rentschler collection

Call Number

MS 2999

Date

1793-2000 (bulk, 1875-1950), inclusive

Creator

Rentschler, Mary Coolidge, 1892–1988

Extent

[29?] Linear feet (in [134?] boxes of various size).

Language of Materials

The documents in the collection are in English.

Abstract

The collection consists primarily of the papers of Mary Coolidge Rentschler (1892–1988), her extended Coolidge, Shepley, Shurtleff, and Clapp relatives, as well as the family of her first husband, Edwin Farnsworth Atkins Jr. (1892–1923), which was involved in sugar planting in Cuba. Mary's second husband, Gordon Sohn Rentschler (1885–1948), a descendant of 19th-century German immigrants (named Rentschler and Schwab) to Ohio, was chairman of National City Bank of New York (1940–1948).

Biographical and Historical Note

The materials are primarily the personal papers of Mary C. Rentschler (1892–1988). She was the eldest daughter of Charles Allerton Coolidge (1858–1936), a prominent Boston architect, and Julia Shepley Coolidge (1856–1935), the descendant of old New England, Missouri, and New York families. The family of her first husband, Edwin Farnsworth Atkins Jr. (1892–1923), was a leading North American sugar producer in Cuba. Her second husband, Gordon Sohn Rentschler (1885–1948), was the son of a successful Ohio industrialist. Gordon S. Rentschler became a prominent banker and Chairman of the National City Bank of New York from 1940–1948.

The smaller amount of materials within the collection are the personal papers of Helen Rentschler Waldon (1890–1967), Gordon S. Rentschler's sister and the wife of Sidney Dunn Waldon (1873–1945), a pioneer in the U.S. automotive and aeronautical industries.

The papers are an amalgam of the histories of the three dominant family groups within the collection: Americans of English descent (Coolidge, Shepley, Shurtleff, Clapp); New England sugar planters in Cuba (Atkins); and nineteenth-century German immigrants who became industrialists in Ohio (Rentschler, Schwab).

The period in United States history that is covered by the bulk of this collection, circa 1875–1950, witnessed the transformation of America into a leading industrialized nation, and the three businesses that form the backdrop to the collection: sugar, iron and steel, and banking were at the heart of this growth.

The lynchpin that connects the family to these three industries is Mary Shepley Coolidge Atkins Rentschler (Mary C. Rentschler). Mary C. Rentschler was the daughter of Julia Shepley and Charles Allerton Coolidge. Mary Rentschler's ancestors—the Shepley, Coolidge, and Shurtleff families—arrived in America in the 1630s from England, and were among the original colonizers of Watertown, Groton, and Salem, Massachusetts, as well as Livermore, Maine. For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were farmers, grocers, and selectmen (town officials). However, after the Revolution—in which Benjamin Shurtleff, David Hill, and two Shepley generations fought—family members became professionals and enjoyed distinguished careers. Ether Shepley (1789–1877) became a U.S. Supreme Court Judge in Portland, Maine. His son moved to Missouri where he became a successful lawyer and married the daughter of Benjamin Clapp, a prominent merchant employed by fur trader John Jacob Astor of New York. Mary C. Rentschler's grandfather, David Hill Coolidge (1833–1907), was a prominent Boston lawyer, and his son became one of the leading architects of his day. Charles Allerton Coolidge was a design partner for Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott from 1886–1936. Among the approximately 370 buildings he designed (excluding alterations and additions) are Stanford University in California, the Public Library in Chicago and the Chicago Art Institute, Boston's South Station railroad terminal, Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum, New York Hospital, and buildings for the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York, and a hospital and medical school in Beijing, China.

Mary C. Rentschler's solid New England background formed the bedrock of her two marriages and subsequent connections to the sugar, iron and steel, and banking industries. The first of these marriages was to Edwin F. Atkins Jr., the son of a prominent sugar producer in Cuba. Both the Coolidge and Atkins families were based in Belmont, Massachusetts. Mary C. Rentschler married Edwin F. Atkins Jr. in 1916, beginning an association with Cuba that would last fifty years. The Atkins family's involvement with Cuba began in 1838 when Elisha Atkins started importing molasses and raw sugar from Cuba. In 1883, three years before the abolition of slavery, the family acquired Soledad. This 4,500-acre sugar estate was then modernized with new railroad track and plantings. By 1887 it produced 4,000 tons of sugar, and by 1888 Elisha Atkins had acquired the Bay State refinery in Boston. Having begun as an intermediary between Cuban planters and U.S. refiners, the firm of E. Atkins became a "vertically integrated" company owning all the means of production, from the raw material and plantations in Cuba, to the Boston refinery in the United States.

During the War of Independence (1895–98) insurgents decimated the sugar industry, and subsequently the United States acquired Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Although Cuba gained independence in 1902, it remained under the tutelage of the United States, and North American sugar refiners gained easy access and control over much of the Cuban raw sugar industry. Increasingly, sugar refiners were joined by directors and members of banking institutions in controlling the sugar industry. Two of the most prominent United States banking houses involved were the House of Morgan and the National City Bank of New York. Complex holding companies were created to facilitate this practice.

During World War I, as the production of Central European beet sugar declined, Cuban cane prices skyrocketed, and a second wave of growth in the Cuban sugar industry took place. This period of prosperity, known as the Danza de Los Milliones, brought increased investment in sugar. The National City Bank of New York provided loans to construct more mills for sugarcane production, as well as to finance the new "colonos," or small farmers who cultivated cane. Twenty-two new NCB branches opened in Cuba in 1919 and one in 1920. U.S.-owned Centrales—large sugar estates—were built in the undeveloped provinces of Camaguey and Oriente in the eastern part of Cuba. However, in 1921, as European beet sugar recovered, the price of Cuban sugar plummeted, and only large U.S.-owned Centrales survived. E. Atkins's Punta Alegre Sugar Company was one of these.

In 1927 Mary C. Rentschler married Gordon S. Rentschler. Her first marriage to Edwin F. Atkins Jr. had ended in 1923 when her husband, their two young sons, and nanny, died in a plane crash off the coast of Cuba. She was the only family survivor. Pregnant at the time, she gave birth to a daughter, Faith Atkins Witter, on July 2, 1923. Mary C. Rentschler maintained a strong attachment to her mother-in-law and Cuba after she was widowed and remarried.

Gordon S. Rentschler was the son of George Adam Rentschler. Born in 1846 in Germany, George arrived in Newark, New Jersey, circa 1849–52. There he apprenticed as a molder and pattern maker for seven years from the age of eleven to eighteen. In 1864 he moved to Peru, Indiana, where he worked as a molder for a small plant. In 1875 he founded the firm of Sohn, Rentschler & Balle. A year later Balle withdrew, and Henry Sohn & George Adam Rentschler established the Ohio Iron Works and the Phoenix Caster Company. The Ohio Iron Works was the nucleus of subsequent Rentschler ventures. In 1892 he founded the Hamilton Foundry & Machine Company to produce castings. Ten years earlier, in 1882, the Hooven Owens Rentschler Company was formed. This company manufactured Corliss engines, marine engines, and sugar mill equipment. By 1913 Rentschler's factory housed the largest Corliss engine works in the world, and their marine engines were used in World War I. These engines produced a large part of the power used at the St. Louis World's Fair, as well as the energy for the Ford Motor Car Company power plant.

Twenty-seven "representative industries" are described in Hamilton's local newspaper, underscoring its position as a booming iron and steel town. It was home to the Beckett Paper Company, Champion Coated Paper Company, Mosler Safe Company, the Estate Stove Company, as well as factories producing farm equipment, knitting mills, and elevators. Also located in Hamilton was the Cincinnati Brewing Company, owned by George A. Rentschler's father-in-law, Peter Schwab. His beer, "Schwab's Pure Gold," was distributed nationwide.

On March 25, 1913, Hamilton, Ohio suffered a record flood. The town was submerged and a relief committee was created. Gordon S. Rentschler was appointed Chairman of the Miami Conservancy District Board, dedicated to the prevention of further floods. The Daily Republican News magazine of 1913 reported that the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler factory "saved the City of Hamilton from . . . disaster. The magnificent buildings, consisting of the foundry and machine shops, stood strong, as a mighty bulwark, against the onrushing waters." Gordon Rentschler worked closely with another member of the committee of the Miami Conservancy Board, Colonel Edward A. Deeds, executive of National Cash Register. In 1917 Rentschler became managing director of the Hooven Owens Rentschler Company, and in 1918 he became involved with NCB through his work with Charles E. Mitchell, Chairman, on a bond issue for the Miami, Ohio flood control program. Through Rentschler's business contacts as a producer of heavy sugar mill machinery, he visited Soledad, the Atkin's plantation in Cuba, and he became a friend of the Atkins family. Rentschler had sugar interests of his own in Cuba, and in 1921 he sought to recover debts owed him by Cuban planters. In his capacity as specialist in Cuban sugar and sugar mill machinery, he was hired by National City Bank Chairman Charles E. Mitchell to survey the bank's sugar properties and decide if they could be successfully overhauled and made profitable. He and Colonel E. A. Deeds traveled to Cuba in July 1921. Their report supported further investment in Cuban sugar. They believed that the industry would ultimately generate revenues to repay the bank's loans and turn a profit. However, this positive assessment proved incorrect. Efforts by the Cuban government failed to resuscitate the sugar industry, and the unforeseen 1929 stock market crash further weakened the industry. In 1933 revolution swept Cuba: rural and urban workers took over mills and overthrew the dictator Gerardo Machado. A nationalist government led by Ramon Grau San Martin took power. He was overthrown in a coup in January 1934 led by Fulgencio Batista.

National City Bank had a long history in Cuba. In 1837 Moses Taylor (president, 1856–1882) was heavily involved in trading Cuban sugar. In 1898, when the United States acquired Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Spanish American War, NCB president James Stillman helped underwrite a $200 million loan to finance the war. By 1931, years of investment in Cuba, coupled with the stock market crash, left the bank exposed to money advances and loans to Cuba worth $79 million, or 80 percent of the bank's capital. Government blamed the economic downturn on the banking industry's speculative practices and wide unregulated powers. In 1931 and 1933 Charles Mitchell, chairman of National City Bank, testified in front of the Senate Banking Committee in Washington, where he came under heavy fire for irresponsible banking practices. As a result, the government created the Banking Act of 1933, separating commercial and investment banking and thereby limiting the risk to which each bank was exposed. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board assumed greater power in controlling the amount and use of credit. In February 1933 Charles E. Mitchell resigned, and James H. Perkins, President of National City Bank's City Bank Farmers Trust Company succeeded him. The practical result for National City Bank was the liquidation of National City Company (securities division) and a return to a policy of "ready money." In addition, NCB closed unprofitable international branches, including twelve in Cuba. The bank now sought to lend to corporations that had excellent business prospects.

Gordon S. Rentschler rose through the ranks of National City Bank. In 1923 he was the youngest member on the bank's board of directors; in 1925 he was elected a vice president and assistant to President Charles Mitchell; in 1929 he was elected president; in 1940 he succeeded Perkins as chairman of the bank. Rentschler continued Perkins' return to conservative banking policy, and with his vice-chairman W. Randolph Burgess, he helped the Treasury sell bills and bonds to finance the war. In 1941 Rentschler toured the country, reassuring corporate clients that the bank would help them once the war ended. Rentschler and Burgess succeeded in restoring the bank's reputation. National City Bank branches were rebuilt after the war as the United States enjoyed an inflationary boom, however, the memory of the boom and bust economy that followed World War I produced a sense of unease, and Rentschler worked cautiously to rebuild the bank until his death in 1948.

Arrangement

The Mary Coolidge Rentschler Collection is organized in three series, each of which is further subdivided:

Series I.
Manuscripts and memorabilia
Series II.
Photographic prints and negatives
Series III.
Mary Rentschler Lowrey addition

Boxes are numbered according to a scheme devised by the archivist Helen Selsdon, who was hired by the donor to process the collection for the family several years before it came to the New-York Historical Society. Each format in the collection—manuscripts, oversize items, memorabilia, standard-size photographic prints, oversize photographic prints, photograph albums/framed photographs, and photographic negatives—is segregated in its own series of boxes, which are numbered from 1 through the end of that format. The portion of the collection assembled by Mary Rentschler Lowrey (Series III) is similarly numbered.

Manuscripts
= Man-1 through Man-24
Oversize items
= Ovz-1 through Ovz-5
Memorabilia
= Mem-1 through Mem-58
Photographs (standard-size prints)
= Pho (std)-1 through Pho (std)-15
Photographs (oversize prints)
= Pho (ovz)-1 through Pho (ovz)-4
Photographs (albums/framed)
= Pho (alb)-1 through Pho (alb)-12 [Album 10 in 4 parts: 10A through 10D]
Photographs (negatives)
= Pho (neg)-1 through Pho (neg)-9
Mary Rentschler Lowrey addition
= MRL-1 through MRL-5

Scope and Contents

Mary Coolidge Rentschler and Helen Rentschler Waldon appear to have collected personal and family papers throughout their lives (1892–1988 and 1890–1967 respectively). The bulk of the documents in this manuscript collection date from 1875–1950 (inclusive dates are 1793–2000). Approximately sixteen and a half linear feet of materials were received by Susan Rentschler Witter (Mary C. Rentschler's daughter and Helen R. Waldon's niece). These included minutes, wills, mortgages, correspondence, scrapbooks, publications, press clippings, memorabilia, blueprints, maps, photographic albums, loose photographic prints, and negatives.

The paper collection is housed in twenty-four manuscript boxes comprising ten linear feet of material. Oversized (non-photographic) documents, including legal agreements, maps, certificates, architectural drawings, and a lithograph, were transferred to three oversized horizontal storage boxes and two cylinders. Materials such as publications, diaries, in memoriam tributes, and 3-D artifacts and memorabilia were removed to 58 bully boxes of varying sizes. Photographic prints were transferred to fifteen print storage boxes and oversized images were transferred to three oversize print storage boxes and one cylinder. Photographic albums and framed photographs were placed in 12 boxes / archival photo albums. Negatives were removed to nine bully boxes.

The majority of the material is in good condition. However, eleven documents [Diary (1904); Diary (1912); Diary (1915); Wedding guest book (1927); Illuminated Pamphlets (1948); Corning Glass Works; Anaconda Copper Mining Co.; Citibank; Home Insurance Company; Consolidated Edison; Princeton University] suffered severe flood damage at Mary C. Rentschler's home at 770 Park Avenue and required professional cleaning and care by a paper conservator [Ms. Ursula Mitra)]. The archivist cleaned less severely damaged correspondence. A micro-particle vacuum cleaner was used to remove mold.

The materials came from two main locations. From the Rentschler home in New York came two record storage boxes and two metal blanket boxes containing predominantly David Hill Coolidge, Mary C. Rentschler, and Gordon S. Rentschler materials. From the Gordon Rentschler farm in Hamilton, Ohio, came two metal suitcases containing Rentschler family materials as well as Helen R. Waldon records. Although the records came from two different physical locations they were all the collection of Mary C. Rentschler. As such they form one series of material. Within this there are five groups denoting the five individuals that form the subject matter of the collection: David Hill Coolidge, Mary C. Rentschler, Gordon S. Rentschler, Helen R. Waldon, and Susan R. Witter. Materials were found arranged by type, e.g., personal correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs. There was little chronological order.

Conditions Governing Access

Open to qualified researchers.

Conditions Governing Use

Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to 20 exposures of stable, unbound material per day.

Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

The collection should be cited as: Mary C. Rentschler Collection, MS 2999, New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift to the New-York Historical Society of Susan Witter, 2016 (accession no. MS-2016-06).

In 1988 Susan Rentschler Witter received two metal blanket boxes, two regular suitcases, two storage boxes, and one wooden chest of archival materials comprising approximately sixteen-and-a-half linear feet of papers. The papers belonged primarily to her mother, Mary Coolidge Atkins Rentschler. A smaller group of materials belonged to her aunt, Helen Rentschler Waldon.

After Mary C. Rentschler's death in 1988, the materials were transferred from her apartment and basement at 770 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y., to the apartment of Susan R. Witter at 1040 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Materials concerning Rentschlers, Schwabs and Waldons were sent from Hamilton, Ohio in 1995.

In 2000 Susan R. Witter contributed some of her own papers concerning her mother's death to the collection. In 2001 Phoebe Rentschler Stanton, Mary C. Rentschler's second daughter, contributed a family genealogy (a bound volume created by Julia Shepley Coolidge, circa 1907; see Box 17 of memorabilia collection) from her home in New York, N.Y., and Mary Rentschler Lowrey, Mary C. Rentschler's third daughter, transferred a box of glass slides and a box of photographs belonging to Sidney Dunn Waldon, as well as newspaper clippings, from her home in San Francisco to her sister Susan R. Witter's home in New York, N.Y.

In October 2003 Mary Rentschler Lowrey contributed approximately 2 linear feet of print, news clippings, and photographic materials to the Mary Coolidge Rentschler collection. The print materials are housed in 2 manuscript boxes and are labeled as a contribution from Mary R. Lowrey. The photographs and oversize documents are integrated into the larger collection.

Bibliography

Published

Atkins, Edwin F. Sixty Years in Cuba (Riverside Press, 1926).

Ayala, Cesar J. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934 (University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

Baker, Christopher P. Cuba [Moon Handbooks, 2nd edition] (Avalon Travel Publishing, 2000).

Becker, Carl M. and Patrick B. Nolan. Keeping the Promise: A Pictorial History of the Miami Conservancy District (Dayton, Ohio: Landfall Press, 1988).

Cleveland, Harold van B. and Thomas F. Huertas. Citibank, 1812–1970 (Harvard University Press, 1985).

Marcosson, Isaac F. Colonel Deeds, Industrial Builder (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1947).

McCormick, Harold W., Tom Allen, and William Young. Shadows in the Sea: The Sharks, Skates, and Rays (Chilton Books, 1963).

Weeks, Katharine Wrisely Claflin and Robert Freeman. A New England Family Revisited (circa 1994?).

Wicker, Elmus. The Banking Panics of the Great Depression (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Witter, Harold John. The Descendants of William Witter and Hannah Churchman of Lynn, MA (Gateway Press, 1991).

Unpublished

Deane, Julia Coolidge. "China Letters," volume I (1921 April 14 – September 7).

Deane, Julia Coolidge. "China Letters," volume II (1921 September 21 – 1922 March 31).

Deane, Julia Coolidge. "China Letters," volume III (1922 April 1 – December 27).

Deane, Julia Coolidge. "China Letters," volume IV (1923 January 1 – October 22).

[Publications in the container list are not included here.]

Collection processed by

Helen Selsdon (outside archival consultant, 2002/2004); finding aid migrated to ArchivesSpace by Joseph Ditta (2020).

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:51:44 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: English

Processing Information

Processed in April 2002 and March 2004 by Helen Selsdon, an archival consultant contracted by Susan R. Witter, donor of the collection. New-York Historical Society processing archivist Joseph Ditta migrated Selsdon's text-based finding aid and inventory to ArchivesSpace in March-May 2020.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024