St. Louis Car Company Records

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A selection of representative images from the collection are available via the free on-line service, flickr. This is less than 2% of the thousands of images available in the collection, and more are periodically added.

Other select items from this collection are available in pdf format (for educational use). Links to these items are below.

www.flickr.com University Archives WUSTL's St. Louis Car Company Photographs photoset

Descriptive Summary

Repository: University Archives, Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries,
One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1061, St. Louis, MO 63130, Telephone: (314) 935-5444 or (314) 935-9730, Fax (314) 935-8320,
e-mail: spec@wumail.wustl.edu, website: http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/archives
Creator: St. Louis Car Company.
Title: St. Louis Car Company Records.
Dates: 1887-1977.
Quantity: 54 linear feet, 161 oversized tubes, and 15 oversized drawers.

Historical Note

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).

Arrangement

The collection is in six series, based on the type of material.

Scope and Contents Note

Finding aids describing the collection contents are available in .PDF format. ( Tips on opening PDF files when using FireFox.) Links to each are listed 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

Restrictions on access

No restrictions on access

Restrictions on use

Users of the collection must read and abide by the Rules for the Use of University Archives Materials.

Users of the collection who wish to use items from this collection, in whole or in part, in any form of publication (as defined in the form) must sign and submit to the Washington University Archives a hard copy of the Notification of Intent to Quote from or Publish University Archives Materials form.
All publication not covered by fair use restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder.

Preferred form of citation

St. Louis Car Company Records, University Archives, Department of Special Collections, Washington Univeristy Libraries. (St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

Select digitized items 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 (for educational use).

From Series 01 -- PCC sales brochure

From Series 02 -- Specifications for PCC construction, 1941 and 1947.

From Series 04 -- Cardinal Aircraft Sales brochure

 

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