Perry Monroe Shoemaker Collection (PMSC)

Biographical Note

Perry Monroe Shoemaker (1906-1999) was one of the most important eastern railroad executives from the 1940s through the late 1960s. He was respected in the industry for his principled opposition to Federal and state regulation of railroads. Shoemaker was born on July 15, 1906 in Elmira, New York, the son of J. Raymond and Mabel Perry Shoemaker. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1928. He received an M.S. in Transportation from Yale University in 1929. Shoemaker married his first wife, Emily Hane in 1929. They had four children, Linda, Kent, Karen and Craig. She passed away in 1964. Shoemaker married Vivien Bulloch Keatley in 1965. In 1973, a year after Keatley's death, Shoemaker married Iva Brown Cocoran.

Throughout his life Shoemaker was involved in a variety of endeavors outside of the railroad industry. He served as a trustee of Elmira College, a small liberal arts college located in Elmira, NY. At various times he served as director and chairmen of the audit committee of Nabisco, Inc., as a member and president of the New York State Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Port Development Committee of the City of New York. Between 1954 and 1965 he was a notable member of former President Herbert Hoover's Second Commission on Efficiency in Government. In 1954 and 1955 he served as chairman of that organization's Committee on Government Defense Procurement Recommendations.

Shoemaker began his railroad career in 1926 as a summer track laborer for the Pennsylvania Railroad. After graduation from college he went to work for the Erie Railroad. He was promoted regularly, attaining the position of general yardmaster by 1932. Later that year, Shoemaker left the Erie for a position in his family's Elmira, NY cold storage business. He returned to railroading in 1934 as a superintendent for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad hired Shoemaker in 1941 as a superintendent. He was promoted quickly to General Superintendent, then General Manager, then to vice-president of Operations. His rapid advancement was crowned by appointment to the presidency in 1952. Coincidently, he replaced William H. White, who left to accept the presidency of New York Central System and later, in 1954, the presidency of the Delaware and Hudson Railway. White would eventually lead the Erie Lackawanna from September 1963 until his untimely death of a heart attack in April 1967. As the chief executive officer of the DL&W Shoemaker supervised the delicate negotiations leading to the October 1960 merger with the Erie Railroad.

Shoemaker was elected vice-chairman of the new Erie Lackawanna Railroad, with the expectation that he would be appointed president within a few months. However, when Harry Von Willer, the railroad's first president, resigned in November 1960, the board passed over Shoemaker in favor of a former Erie executive, Milton G. McInnes. In August 1961 Shoemaker was appointed chairmen of the board. He interpreted this action as part of an effort to minimize his authority in the company. He realized that his influence within the company was declining quickly and he began to investigate other opportunities.

In November of 1962 he accepted an offer to serve as president and chairmen of the board of the ailing Central Railroad of New Jersey. Despite his manifest skills he was unable to save the company. Shoemaker resigned in 1968, having served as bankruptcy trustee after 1967. He attributed his failure in part to New Jersey's exorbitant railroad taxes. A more significant factor was the New Jersey Public Utility Commission's refusal to either approve fare increases sufficient to cover commuter train operating costs or allow the abandonment of the chronically deficit ridden commuter services. Finally, the Governor's personal antipathies toward Shoemaker and the State's adamant refusal to fully subsidize commuter operations once it began to provide some funding, merely postponed the company's final bankruptcy. The company was never reorganized successfully as a railroad and its rail assets went into Conrail, as did those of the Erie Lackawanna, Penn Central, Reading, Lehigh Valley, Lehigh and Hudson River and Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines on April 1, 1976.

After leaving the CNJ Shoemaker worked as a highly sought-after transportation consultant. He retired for good in 1980. In retirement in Tampa, Florida he was involved in community activities and continued his lifelong avocation of railroad history. In particular he was active in efforts to return the sole extant DL&W steam locomotive, Camelback No. 952, to the Northeastern United States from the National Transportation Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. Shoemaker passed away after a short illness on December 25, 1999 at age 93. He is buried in his hometown of Elmira, NY.

Scope and Content Note

The Perry M. Shoemaker Collection (PMSC) is a separate yet constituent part of the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society (ELHS) collection. The PMSC consists of material donated to the ELHS by Mr. Shoemaker in 1992. He collected the 5.83 linear feet of material during his years as a railroad executive. The PMSC contains material from Shoemaker's years at the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Erie Lackawanna and the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

The PMSC is of significant interest to those researching industry leaders during the 1950s and 1960s, railroads in Northeastern United States after World War II, the EL merger, Federal and state regulation of the railroad industry, the 1967 bankruptcy of the CNJ and the relationship between the state of New Jersey and the railroad industry.

The PMSC is Series A,Sub-series 1 of the ELHS collection. The material is grouped into six units in a total of four boxes with 180 folders.

Unit 1: Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (1952 - 1960) in 37 folders contains board minutes, financial information, inspection trip booklets, photographs, policy statements, speech-books, transcripts of testimony before regulatory boards, working notes and papers and other miscellaneous materials.

Unit 2: Two-Way and Three-Way Merger Materials(1954 - 1960) comprises 19 folders of correspondence, labor and operations information, maps, merger reports, Wyer, Dick and Co. merger studies and various working papers.

Unit 3: Erie Lackawanna Railway (1960 - 1962) totals 6 folders including financial information, management by-laws, maps and yard operation proposals.

Unit 4: Central Railroad of New Jersey (1962 - 1968) consists of 69 folders that contain Bankruptcy papers and notes, correspondence, financial information, maps, photographs, public affairs information, a speech-book and other miscellaneous papers.  

Unit 5: Railroad History is comprised of 12 folders of books, correspondence, historical articles and miscellaneous information on a variety of historical railroad topics.

Unit 6: Annual Reports (1939 - 1967) is made up of 37 folders of annual reports from the DL&W, Erie, EL and CNJ. Many contain margin notes and additional information by Shoemaker. Duplicates of the DL&W, Erie and EL annual reports may be found in series D, sub-series 1, units 1-3.

Abbreviations

Further Manuscript Resources

Papers relating to Perry Shoemaker's family, in particular his father J. Raymond Shoemaker can be found in the collection of the Chemung County Historical Society archives located in the Chemung Valley History Museum, 415 East Water Street Elmira, NY 14901. Phone: 607.734.4167.

Papers relating to the later history of the Erie Lackawanna Railway can be found in the Erie Lackawanna Railway Corporate collection at the University of Akron Archival Services.

Papers, mostly financial and executive in nature, relating to the nineteenth century and early twentieth century history of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad are housed at Syracuse University.

Papers relating to Shoemaker's work on the Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government can be found in the Special Collections at the University of Oregon, Knight Library, NUCMC number MS 72-560.

Other Resources

Bryant, Keith L., ed. Railroads in the Age of Regulation, 1900-1980. New York: Facts-on-File, 1988. See entries for Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, Erie Railroad and Perry M. Shoemaker.

Grant, H. Roger, Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938-1992. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Sweetland, David R. Lackawanna Railroad: in Color. Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books, 1990.

Tabor, Thomas Townsend, The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Nineteenth Century: 1828-1899. Muncy, PA: Privately Printed, 1977.

Tabor, Thomas Townsend and Thomas Townsend Taber III. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century, 1889-1960: Equipment and Marine. Muncy, PA: Privately Printed, 1981.

-----------. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century, 1889-1960: History and Operations. Muncy, PA: Privately Printed, 1980.

Perry Monroe Shoemaker Collection - Box Inventory