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Shoup (Paul) Papers
M0057
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Paul Shoup Papers
Creator:
Shoup, Paul
Identifier/Call Number: M0057
Identifier/Call Number: 1457
Physical Description:
5.25 Linear Feet
(12 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1884-1986
Abstract: Papers of prominent businessman and writer Paul Shoup, who was president of Southern Pacific Railroad. Contains business and
personal correspondence, business, legal and financial papers, bills and acts of Congress, governmental documents, political
campaign material, minutes of meetings, texts of articles and printed materials covering the period of Shoup's presidency
(1929-32) and vice chairmanship (1932-1938) of the Southern Pacific Company and his interest and involvement with development
and oil companies, notably the Tide Water Oil Group.
Open for research. Note that material must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Audiovisual materials
are not available in original format, and must be reformatted to a digital use copy.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The papers of Paul Shoup are the gift of his sons, Carl Sumner Shoup, professor of economics at Columbia University, and the
late Jack Wilson Shoup, former Secretary of the Stanford Alumni Association. They were presented to the Stanford Library in
the fall of 1961.
Paul Shoup, son of Timothy and Sarah Sumner Shoup, was born in San Bernardino, California on January 8, 1874. While still
in school, he worked delivering newspapers and later as a local correspondent for a Los Angeles paper. He was graduated from
San Bernardino High School in 1891 and afterwards obtained a clerical job in the mechanical department of the Atchinson, Topeka
and Santa Fe Railway at San Bernardino.
In 1892, young Paul began his forty-seven year career with the Southern Pacific Company as a ticket clerk in the San Bernardino
office. Shoup quickly learned other aspects of the business and worked in the telegraph and freight offices before going into
the general office traffic service. Miss Rose Wilson became Mrs. Paul Shoup on December 1, 1900. The Shoups had three children:
Carl Sumner, Jack Wilson, and Louise.
In the year following his marriage, Shoup became district freight and passenger agent at San Jose, his first official position.
He rose rapidly in the traffic department becoming assistant general freight and passenger agent and an executive of the line
at Portland, Oregon. When the earthquake and fire struck San Francisco in 1906, Shoup returned from Portland to serve on the
board directing rehabilitation work.
In 1910 Shoup was appointed assistant general manager in charge of the railroad's municipal and inter-urban electric lines
in several California cities. Two years later he was made president of the Pacific Electric Railway Company. With the outbreak
of World War I, the government took over the operation of the nation's railroads and Shoup was made vice president in charge
of the property interests of Southern Pacific and its affiliated and proprietary concerns.
The Southern Pacific Company named Paul Shoup vice president and assistant to the president in 1920, and in 1925, he was appointed
executive vice president. In 1929 he became president and in 1932, vice chairman of the board with offices in New York. He
retired from the vice chairmanship and Southern Pacific in 1938 to serve as president of Southern Californians, Inc., an employer
group organized to "fight racketeering in labor relations."
Shoup had many interests besides the railroad industry. One of his earliest ambitions had been to become a professional writer,
and in his early career had had a number of stories published. He published numerous articles and made speeches on a variety
of subjects connected with his business and political interests. According to various newspaper accounts of his career, Shoup
is supposed to have been one of the initial founders of "Sunset Magazine"--originally a railroadmen's trade journal--and to
have been instrumental in building it to become one of the West's leading popular magazines.
Paul Shoup was also president of the Pacific Oil Company and Associated 0il Company and served on the boards of several other
oil, land, gas, electric, and railroad companies, including Tide Water Oil. He wrote and conferred a great deal with Congressional
and governmental agencies on labor and management problems, ways to reduce the effects of the Depression, and spoke out against
the Social Security Act and parts of the Interstate Commerce Act. A Republican in politics, he was very active in the campaign
of Alfred M. Landon for President in 1935-1936.
Shoup belonged to a number of clubs, including the Bohemian, the Bankers (New York), the Pacific Union (San Francisco), and
the Jonathan. He was President of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, Inc. and was a member of the board of trustees
of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Inc. and Stanford University, where both his sons received their undergraduate
degrees. After a long, active and varied career, Paul Shoup died in California on July 30, 1946.
Most of this biographical material is drawn from "Who's Who in America, vol. 23, 1944-1945" and various newspaper clippings
found in the collection.
Page from catalog record https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4082960
[Identification of item] Paul Shoup Papers, M057, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
The Paul Shoup collection contains some 7,500 items, by rough estimate, and covers primarily his terms as president and vice
chairman of the Southern Pacific Company between 1929 and 1938. There are some items dated 1928 and some pertaining to Southern
Californians, Inc., which he joined after retiring from Southern Pacific in 1938. There are also a few items dated as late
as 1945 and 1946. The collection is made up, in part, of personal and business correspondence, various business papers and
reports, minutes of meetings of stockholders and boards of directors, financial statements, annual reports, governmental and
Congressional documents, Depression relief proposals, clippings, memos, and Shoup's own articles and addresses.
The subject matter covered is rich and varied. In the area of business there are the railroad and oil companies of which the
outstanding are Southern Pacific and Tide Water Oil Company. There are also the directors' and stockholders' meetings and
the J. Paul Getty proxie fight. Agreements with persons such as R. Stanley Dollar and organizations such as the Calmexico
Syndicate and the Mission Corporation also appear.
In politics, Shoup was a Republican. He was a personal friend of Herbert Hoover and corresponded with him on numerous subjects.
There are some Hoover autograph letters in the collection including one on a White House letterhead. Shoup was also active
in Alf Landon's 1935-1936 campaign for the Presidency against Roosevelt and there is a folder of material as well as a number
of clippings relating to that subject.
Other subjects can be described as having both political and business facets. Correspondence about the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation and with Jesse Jones, articles against portions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Social Security Act, and
Shoup's own indictment along with several oil companies by the federal government for violation of anti-trust legislation,
can be placed in this category. The correspondence also points up how much effort in terms of time and money was spent by
bankers and railroad executives to find some plan for stemming the Depression and increasing employment.
There is also a fair amount of correspondence relating to StanfordUniversity. As the father of two alumni and a member of
the Board of Trustees, Shoup had an active interest in the school. He helped to finance the Hoover Library and the Children's
Convalescent Home. During the Depression, he was concerned about the problem of bolstering finances of the University.
Some of the many important names which appear in the correspondence are given below. Arthur Ballantine, Undersecretary of
the Treasury; Clarence Bamberger, Associated Oil Distributing Company; Ernest Bamberger, railroad and mining in Utah; Harry
Chandler, president of the Times-Mirror Company of Los Angeles; Denver Church, U.S. House of Representatives, 9th District
of California, 1933; Royal S. Copeland., U.S. Senator from New York and chairman of the Commerce Committee, 1937; D. A. Crawford,
president of the Pullman Company; W. H. Crocker, banker of San Francisco; Joseph Di Giorgio, Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation
of New York; J. S. Douglas of Douglas, Arizona; Lewis Williams Douglas, U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona; John Dickinson,
assistant Secretary, Department of Commerce; Fred J. Fisher, president of Fisher Body Corporation, Detroit; Herbert Fleishhacker,
banker of San Francisco; Carl R. Gray, president of the Union Pacific System; John Hamilton, chairman of the Republican National
Committee, 1936-1937; L. O. Head, President of Railway Express Agency, New York; Herbert Hoover, President of the United States,
1929-1932; George Houston, president of Baldwin Locomotive Works; William Humphrey, president of Associated Oil Company and
Tide Water Oil Company; Hiram Johnson, U.S. Senator from California; Jesse H. Jones, chairman of the R.F.C.; K. R. Kingsbury,
president of Standard Oil of California; R. P. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, 1932; Alfred M. Landon, Governor of Kansas and
Presidential candidate; Clarence Lea, U.S. House of Representatives, 1st District of California, 1936; Charles Mahaffie, Commissioner
of I.C.C., 1934; Eugene Meyer, publisher of the "Washington Post"; Daniel C. Jackling, president and director of Mesabi Iron
Company; Ogden MiIls, Secretary of the Treasury, 1932; Walter Newton, secretary to President Hoover; Carl Rott, secretary
to Governor Landon; Alfred P. Sloan, president of General Motors Corporation; Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior
and President of Stanford University; and Owen D. Young, chairman of the Banking and Industrial Committee, 1932.
Materials withdrawn from the collection: Minutes of the Board of Trustees of Stanford University, Stanford Associates publications,
and miscellaneous related Stanford publications were removed and placed in the Stanford Collection.
While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not
an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission
or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Businesspeople
Depressions -- 1929.
Social security--Law and legislation
Hoover, Herbert, 1874-1964
Jackling, Daniel Cowan
Johnson, Hiram, 1866-1945
Wilbur, Ray L. (Ray Lyman), 1875-1949
Bohemian Club (San Francisco, Calif.)
Southern Pacific Company
Stanford University