Related Research Articles
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. Congress expanded ICC authority to regulate other modes of commerce beginning in 1906. Throughout the 20th century, several of ICC's authorities were transferred to other federal agencies. The ICC was abolished in 1995, and its remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.
The Transportation Act, 1920, commonly known as the Esch–Cummins Act, was a United States federal law that returned railroads to private operation after World War I, with much regulation. It also officially encouraged private consolidation of railroads and mandated that the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ensure their profitability. The act was named after Rep. John J. Esch and Sen. Albert B. Cummins.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan nonprofit organization. CFR is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Its membership has included senior politicians, numerous secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, corporate directors and CEOs, and senior media figures.
William Gibbs McAdoo Jr. was an American lawyer and statesman. McAdoo was a leader of the Progressive movement and played a major role in the administration of his father-in-law President Woodrow Wilson. A member of the Democratic Party, he also represented California in the United States Senate.
The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department and the Navy Department. Because the United States Department of Defense would only come into existence in 1947, this was an ad hoc construction to promote cooperation between the Army and the Navy, it was founded by the Council of National Defense. The War Industries Board was preceded by the General Munitions Board —which didn't have the authority it needed and was later strengthened and transformed into the WIB.
Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in what became the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia, in New France in 1720. In 1762–1764, at the close of the French and Indian War (1756–1763), a gravity railroad, Montresor's Tramway, was built by British military engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage in Lewiston, New York.
The United States Shipping Board (USSB) was established as an emergency agency by the 1916 Shipping Act, on September 7, 1916. The United States Shipping Board's task was to increase the number of US ships supporting the World War I efforts. The program ended on March 2, 1934.
Franklin Knight Lane was an American progressive politician from California. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as United States Secretary of the Interior from 1913 to 1920. He also served as a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and was the Democratic nominee for Governor of California in 1902, losing a narrow race in what was then a heavily Republican state.
The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1, 1920. It was the largest American experiment with nationalization, and was undertaken against a background of war emergency following American entry into World War I. During its brief existence, the USRA made major investments in the United States railroad system, and introduced standardized locomotive and railroad car classes, known as USRA standard. After the end of World War I, while some in the United States advocated for continuing nationalization, ultimately the railroads were returned to their previous owners in early 1920.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, or the Railway Shopmen's Strike, was a nationwide strike of railroad workers in the United States. Launched on July 1, 1922 by seven of the sixteen extant railroad labor organizations, the strike continued into August before collapsing. A sweeping judicial injunction by Judge James Herbert Wilkerson effectively ended the strike on September 1, 1922.
Daniel Willard was an American railroad executive best known as the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from 1910 to 1941. He served on or headed several government railroad commissions in World War I and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1932 due to his part in negotiating wage cuts in the Great Depression.
Joseph A. Cari Jr. is an American merchant banker, public policy expert, and philanthropist currently residing in New York. Cari's professional career has spanned the worlds of merchant banking, media, public policy, politics, law and education.
Walker Downer Hines was an American railroad executive and second Director General of the United States Railroad Administration.
Paul Pardee Hastings was a prominent executive of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad.
Alfred Holland Smith was the President of New York Central Railroad from January 1914 to May 1918 and from June 1919 until his death. The entirety of Smith's forty-five-year career was dedicated to the railroads. He started his career as a messenger boy at the age of fourteen, earning 4 dollars a week, and became the highest-paid railroad manager in the U.S., receiving an annual salary of more than $100,000 according to one survey.
Fairfax Harrison was an American lawyer, businessman, and writer. The son of the secretary to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Harrison studied law at Yale University and Columbia University before becoming a lawyer for the Southern Railway Company in 1896. By 1906 he was Southern's vice-president of finance, and in 1907 he helped secure funding to keep the company solvent. In 1913 he was elected president of Southern, where he instituted a number of reforms in the way the company operated.
The Railroad Labor Board (RLB) was an institution established in the United States of America by the Transportation Act of 1920. This nine-member panel was designed as means of settling wage disputes between railway companies and their employees. The Board's approval of wage reductions for railroad shopmen was instrumental in triggering the Great Railroad Strike of 1922. The Board was terminated on May 20, 1926 when President Calvin Coolidge signed a new Railway Labor Act into law.
Railway Labor Executives' Association (RLEA) was a federation of rail transport labor unions in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1926 with the purpose of acting as a legislative lobbying and policy advisory body. At times, it played a prominent role in setting rail transport policy in the U.S., and was party to six U.S. Supreme Court cases. It disbanded in January 1997, with representation, collective bargaining, and legislative lobbying assumed by the newly formed Rail Division of the AFL–CIO Transportation Trades Department.
Glenn Edward Plumb was an American lawyer who was famous for proposing a radical plan for cooperative railway ownership, the Plumb plan, in 1918. He founded the Plumb Plan League to support the proposal. Despite strong support from organized labor, including railroad workers, miners and farm workers, the plan was not adopted.
Thomas Carr Powell was an American railroad executive from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was manager of inland traffic and member of the priorities committee in the War Industries Board during World War I. He was also director of the Division of Capital Expenditures for the United States Railroad Administration. He served as president of Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad and the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad.
References
- 1 2 3 Cunningham, William J. (1922). American Railroads: Government Control and Reconstruction Policies (PDF). Chicago: A.W. Shaw Co. pp. 23–34.
- ↑ United States Congress (April 6, 1917). "A Joint Resolution of April 6, 1917, Public Resolution 65-1, 40 Stat. 1, Declaring that a State of War Exists Between the Imperial German Government and the Government and the People of the United States and Making Provision to Prosecute the Same". Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives.
- 1 2 Dixon, Frank H. (1922). Railroads and Government: Their Relations in the United States, 1910-1921 (PDF). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
 | This United States rail–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |