St. Louis Car Company Records

Collection

Identifier: LH-wua00361

Staff Only

This collection includes materials that document the history and products of the St. Louis Car Company, including publicity materials, product specifications, job books, general office files, photographs, and drawings of cars produced by the St. Louis Car Company.

Dates

Creation: 1887-1977

Creator

St. Louis Car Company (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Conditions Governing Use

Users of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.

Providing access to materials does not constitute permission to publish or otherwise authorize use. All publication not covered by fair use or other exceptions is restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder, which may or may not be Washington University.

If you wish to publish or license Special Collections materials, please contact Special Collections to inquire about copyright status at (314) 935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu. (Publish means quotation in whole or in part in seminar or term papers, theses or dissertations, journal articles, monographs, books, digital forms, photographs, images, dramatic presentations, transcriptions, or any other form prepared for a limited or general public.)

Extent

47 linear feet

105 boxes

Additional Description

Historical Information

The St. Louis Car Company was formed in April of 1887, to manufacture and sell streetcars and other kinds of rolling stock of street and steam railways. In succeeding years the company built automobiles, including the American Mors, the Skelton, and the Standard Six. A division of the company produced aircraft such as the Cardinal. During the two world wars, the company manufactured gliders, trainer, Alligators, flying boats, and dirigible gondolas. Among their most sucessful products were the Birney Safety Cars and the PCC Cars. The Car Company disbanded in 1973. For more information on the history of the company, see Andrew D. Young and Eugene Provenzo, The History of the St. Louis Car Company (Howell North Books 1978). See also Alan R. Lind, From Horsecars to Streamliners.

Arrangement

The collection is in seven series, described below.

Series 1: Publicity materials, arranged alphabetically by subject.

Series 2: Specifications, arranged by type of vehicle

Series 3: Job books and cost data, arranged chronologically.

Series 4: General office files, including material on PCC cars and wholly owned subsidiaries such as the St. Louis Aircraft Company. This is by no means a complete office file of the Car Company. In addition, users should be aware that our collection contains no personnel files from the company.

Series 5: Photographs and negatives of cars, trucks, and other products produced by the company, arranged chronologically (by job order number).

Series 6: Drawings of cars produced by the company, arranged in rough chronological order.

Series 7: Original works of art created by the company, arranged alphabetically by transit entity (if known) and then chronologically.

Books owned by the St. Louis Car Company and recieved with the archival collection are cataloged separately. Consult our online catalog listing for details.

Other Descriptive Information

Books owned by the St. Louis Car Company and recieved with the archival collection are cataloged separately. Consult our online catalog listing for details. Select digitized items from this collection: Visit our Flickr site for a selection of images from this collection. These items are represenative of the type found in this collection. Please contact the archives staff to inquire about proceedures and fees for items not yet digitized. These are provided in pdf format. From Series 1 -- PCC sales brochure From Series 2 -- Specifications for PCC construction, 1941 and 1947. From Series 4 -- Cardinal Aircraft Sales brochure