RED TEXT = NEED TO VERIFY/NEED CITATION
PINK TEXT= NEED ACCOMPANYING IMAGE
GREEN TEXT=HAVE AN ACCOMPANYING IMAGE ex. (Picture of Mr. Clayton on cover of Time-1925), (Postcard), (copy of actual document), etc.
OUTLINE
*Houston is fabulous
*People have heard about alot of her leaders, we wanna tell you about another one who "played an especially important part in tying the
*early years
*move to OK/beginning of Anderson/Clayton
*WW I
*what brought them to Houston-it was fabulous even then
*WW II
*Suite 8F and ouside of it
*Continued contribution to our heritage
Houston, TX is the fourth largest city in the United States...
Jesse H. Jones-Mr. Houston
The Hoggs
Houston drew many people....cotton...
"The Houston Board of Trade and Cotton Exchange, as it was named in 1874 in its first charter, succeeded the Houston Board of Trade, which had been established in 1867. The founders included some of Houston's influential business leaders in cotton marketing, banking, railroads,qv and the lumber industry.q" (HANDBOOK)
"Anderson's partner, often referred to as "Mr. Cotton," was born on February 7, 1880 in Tupelo, Mississippi to James Monroe Clayton and his wife. After his cotton farm failed in 1886, Clayton's father moved to Jackson, Tennessee where Clayton became acquainted with the Andersons.
Although Clayton attended public schools in Jackson, "the 1893 depression led to Will's leaving school after completing the seventh grade" and, when 13, "starting work at $10 a month to help support the family. Working for the county clerk, he soon became the "fastest shorthand writer and typist in Jackson." (Streit eulogy)
By studying shorthand at night, he became a deputy clerk and public stenographer and, in 1895, secretary to Jerome Hill of the Cotton Ginners Compress Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Thus began his long and successful career in the cotton business. The following year, Clayton moved with Mr. Hill to New York City as an employee of the American Cotton Company. While in New York, he studied French, economics, politics and geography and, in 1904, became an assistant general manager of the firm. (Historic Houston article on William Clayton)
"In 1900 Will's eldest sister and her husband, Frank Anderson, had gone to Oklahoma City, attracted by the opportunites for a merchant in the fast growing territory..." (GARWOOD, p.78)
On August 1, 1904, Clayton and the Anderson brothers formed the cotton merchandising firm Anderson, Clayton and Company in Oklahoma City. Instrumental in the growth of the firm into an international corporation, Clayton later became known as "the greatest cotton merchant in the world." Eventually, Anderson, Clayton and Company maintained branch offices in such cotton-producing lands as Egypt and South America and boasted sales offices on five continents." (Historic Houston article on William Clayton)
Residence: 24 APR 1910 617 W. 14th Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma
"Buffalo Bayou and its consequent development into the Houston Ship Channel has played a central role in the history of Houston. It has attracted labor and capital and allowed the evolution of the city as a distribution point, as well as a manufacturing and financial center. Therefore, even though the growth of Houston resulted from many factors-natural resources, location, climate, city leadership-the channel has been vital. The sobriquet, "The Bayou City," thus, more than any other, characterizes this leading urdban community of the Southwest." (Frantz, p.3)
"In the 1890's after Galveston had cut a deeper watercourse into its harbor, the bulk of commerce gravitated to the island port. With Galveston's hegemony of shipping seemingly secure. the Galveston News jeered after Sampson Heidenheimer lost six barges of salt in the bayou, "Houston at last a salt-water port; god Almight furnished the water; Heidenheimer the salt." IN 1900, however, a violent hurricane with winds reaching 110 miles per hour slammed into Galveston. The storn inundated the island, cut it off from the mainland, killed 6,000 people, and destroyed millions of dollars in property....In 1900 Houston and Glveston ere about equal in size, but in 1910 Houston was twice as large...The 1900 hurrican had ruined Galveston's future...Agitation for a deep-water port in Houston had arisen again in the 1890's, and in 1899 the United States Congress had approved, in general, a deepening of the channel to twenty-five feet. Delays and lack of appropriations, however, resulted in only an eithteen-foot channel by 1908. Pressure for a safe deep-water port continued as Houston became an oil and lumber center in the early twentieth centrry." (Frantz p. 16-17)
"The Cotton Exchange Building was a center for business and civic events. It was enlarged to four floors and remodeled in 1907; the present ornate trading room was installed at this time." (HANDBOOK)
Congressman Thomas H. Ball (a graduate of Austin College, I might add -Collier) quickly who was on the Rivers and Harbors Committee in D.C. "convinced fellow lawmakers to visit Houston so they could see why, with the Buffalo Bayou flowing through it, the place was perfect for a federally funded ship channel." ( http://texnews.com/reality/brazosbill/bill10.html) "Father of the Port."
"In 1912 a Houston delegation obtained an agreement with the federal government to dredge to a depth of twenty-five feet, provided that Harris County build terminal facilites and pay half the cost. Twenty-four dredges went to work, and on November 10, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson fired, by remote control, a cannon that officially opened the new channel, cut to a width of one hundred feet and a depth of twenty-five feet." (Frantz p.17)
"This was a major blow to Galveston, who until then, had been known as the “Wall Street of the South.” As soon as the Houston Ship Channel opened in 1914, it began attracting oil refineries. The Port of Houston’s greatest asset was its location. " (http://vuepointmag.com/firstissue/goodchem.htm)
"The firm of Anderson Clayton came to
"As Will Clayton explained later, "We moved to Houston because Houston was the little end of the funnel that drained all of Texas and the Oklahoma territory...In other words we were at the back door and we wanted to be at the front door" (07 June 1950 Houston Chronicle) Taking advantage of markets disrupted by World War I, Anderson, Clayton set up sales agencies in Europe, Asia, and Central America. Within the United States they established autonomous buying units in Los Angeles, Charlotte, Atlanta, and memphis; and to assure quick delivery they built warehouses and compressed in Houston and New Orleans. The company, moreover, produced its own bagging material, and in 1924 tested the feasibility of textile manufacture in Houston. during the 1930's Anderson, Clayton established subsidiary companies abroud, and after World War II diversified into food processing, manufacturing and insurance. " (McCOMB, p. 112)
Camp Logan built 24 July 1917
http://www.hal-pc.org/~lfa/BB17.html
Jesse Jones
William Lockhart Clayton-Mr. Cotton
"Clayton entered government service in World War I as a member of the Cotton Distribution Committee. Although he was a Democrat, he opposed the New Deal agricultural policies of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the New Deal's free trade policies led him to support Roosevelt in the 1936 election." (WIKI entry for Clayton)
"Cottonseed and cotton linters, earlier discarded, became valuable products as the cottonseed oil business emerged with the new industrial focus on chemical production. Likewise, World War I put new emphasis on cotton linters in the production of smokeless powder, while the development of rayon fiber added to the value of the cotton by-product." http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=S011
POST WW I
"Early in 1919 the Government earmarked $3,5000,000 to improve the Houston Ship Channel and increase its depth to thirty feet.....In March, 1919, the Houston Inter-American Mercantile Syndicate was organized to operate a steamship line to South America." (WPA writers program, p.112)
"In 1924 the exchange moved to a new, larger building at Prairie and Caroline streets. The cornerstone from the original building was moved to the lobby of the newer one." (HANDBOOK)
"In the 1930s, when Jesse Jones became Federal Loan Administrator, he brought Clayton into the government as his deputy. After Jones, Clayton may well have been the most importnat link between the Houston and Texas business elites and the federal government in this period." (FEAGIN p. 127)
Suite 8F
"Several important capitalists remained largely outside the local
"Clayton helped integrate the
The lack of acknowledgement to his contributions might also be due to the fact that Houstonians don't seem to have been thrilled with the idea of the United Nations or UNESCO, both things that Clayton backed. Fuermann's Reluctant Empire p.142-143 talks about the Houston School Board being the city's main forum for debating larger issues. In 1957 some textbooks were banned until parts were deleted- an introduction to geography praising the U.N., a chapter titled "It's All One World"...but this might just be due to later Communist fears. It might be good to look at the papers and see what the editorials were saying about the UN and stuff...
1937 Houston Post Nov 14, 1937 Sec. 1, p.4 picture of the Claytons. "Claytons leave for Europe-Mr. and Mrs. William L. clayton, of HOuston, are shown as they stoood together on the dek of the luxurious French liner Normandie as it cleared the New York dock for Europe. The Claytons will be spend a fall sojourn on the Continent. The Normandie is to dock at Cherbourg."
In 21 November 1938 the organizational meeting of the National Cotton Council of America was held in Memphis, TN. Clayton still involved with cotton by then? 1939 first annual meeting of same held in Dallas, TX.
World War II
"I was about ready to go to the bank again in 1940 when Mr. Jones asked me to come down to Washington to help out in some financing for World War II--a great number of pressures being put on manufacturers to manufacture things--airplanes, guns, etc.--for use of the Allies in the European war which had developed into World War II. At that time, of course--this was in July, 1940, about a year and a half before the United States actually got into the war. During our discussions and studies and everything, we came upon the idea of setting up several subsidiaries in the RFC (Reconstruction Finance Corporation) such as the Defense Plant Corporation, Defense Supplies, the Rubber Reserve, and a number of other auxiliary financing groups that would help the Defense Program, as we called it then, because at that time we were only trying to build up our own defenses and to help those that were engaged"
(John W. Snyder interview, Washington, D.C., November 8, 1967 By Jerry N. Hess) http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/snyder1.htm
"In 1940, Clayton returned to government service in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, then moved to the Export-Import Bank, where he worked to procure strategic materials for the United States and to deny them to Nazi Germany. After a series of administrative shuffles, Clayton found himself working under Vice-PresidentHenry A. Wallace. Disagreements between them led Clayton to resign in January 1944, only to return to government service a month later as Surplus War Property Administrator under James F. Byrnes in the Office of War Mobilization." (WIKI entry for Clayton)
It would be interesting to know what Clayton thought about the creation of Isreal, Gen. Marshall didn't like it, "telling President Truman, "If you (recognize the state of Israel) and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you." " (wiki article on Marshall)
"At the end of 1944, Clayton was named the first Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, a post that allowed him to promote the free trade policies that he believed in. He was a member of the Interim Committee appointed to advise Secretary of WarHenry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman on problems expected to arise from the development of the atomic bomb and he was an economic advisor to Truman at the Potsdam Conference"(WIKI entry for Clayton) which "turned out to be the last conference among the allied leaders" (WIKI entry for Potsdam Conference).
News Reel of Truman and Sec of State Byrnes on way to Potsdam Conference (19 JUL 1945)
footage of last session of the United Nations Conference-Charter of the United Nations signed (28 JUN 1945)
"Mr. Stettinius affixes his signature for the United States, one of his last acts as Secretary of State"
19 SEP 1946 footage including Scretary of State Byrnes with his advisory staff (it is hard to see if Clayton is included)
Footage of UN meeting 16 DEC 1946 (NY chosen for building site- Big Four present, Shows Russian delegate and British ambassador)
30 AUG 1946 UN starts session at new home-Lake Success, NY
"Clayton strongly supported American economic aid to rebuild Europe after World War II and had a major role in shaping the Marshall Plan in 1947. In 1948, he returned to his private business in Houston, but remained active in efforts to promote free trade and economic cooperation between the United States and its allies during the Cold War." (WIKI entry for Clayton)
TIME 19 SEP 1949: "Marriage Revealed. Will L. Clayton, 69, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (1945-47) and longtime chairman of the Houston firm of Anderson, Clayton & Co., world's largest cotton brokers; and Susan Vaughan Clayton, sixtyish, who had divorced him last May after 47 years of marriage; on Aug. 6; in Jasper, Alberta."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,800710,00.html
"During the 1930's and 1940's, Schrimpf Alley was a wild and lawless slum ridden with vice, gambling and prostitution. In 1952, it was regarded as the worst slum in the city. The blight, however, was too blatant to ignore. Susan Vahn Clayton, wife of Will Clayton, the co-founder of Anderson, Clayton and Company, a large cotton exporting firm, purchased the twenty-three acre tract, about two-thirds of Schrimpf's Field, that contained Schrimpf Alley, and she donated it to the Houston Housing Authority for the Clayton Homes project. This public housing project, completed 1952, was designed to transform the slum into a healthy neighborhood. The remaining one third of Schrimpf's Field was purchased by the state in the mid-1950's for the construction of US 59. Forty-six years later, in 1998, the Clayton Homes public housing project was renovated and replaced by low income housing in a mix of styles for rental or ownership. Three hundred of the original three hundred thirty-two apartments were torn down, and in their place, one hundred sixty new townhomes were constructed on the site at 1919 Runnels Street. Although located within a half mile of Minute Maid Park and just east of the affluent loft and townhome development of the Alexan Lofts, the Clayton Homes project remains a rough neighborhood rife with drugs and crime. Only time will tell if the revitalization of the Second Ward will ultimately recreate the long sought after neighborhood that beckons back to first decades of Houston." (AULBACK)
March 1953 "On land donated by Will and Susan Clayton, the city opened its first housing project since World War II. The 348-unit project was mainly for Latin Americans." (http://www.houstonhistory.com/decades/history5m.htm)
Houston Press 16 FEB 1962. "In a stirring tribute to William L. Clayton Thursday, Houston Rotarians were joined by civic leaders, diplomatic officials and old friends..."
"In 1963, when Clayton was in his eighties, President John F. Kennedy asked him to work on the national export expansion program and the limited nuclear test ban treaty." (WIKI entry for Clayton)
"...the Rev. Charles L. Allen at the funeral in the thronged First Methodist Church: "When you think of William Clayton, you are certain of immortality. The God who created him could not let him die." (Streit eulogy)
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