Louisiana’s “Sugar Tramps” in theCaribbean Sugar Industry

Humberto García-Muñiz

The linkage of the Caribbean and the United States in the international sugareconomy has been long noted, specifically in connection with trade, technology andownership. Yet the management aspect has been overlooked. This article attemptsto redress this historical lacuna by analyzing the development of the Louisiana-Caribbean connection following the introduction of the central factory in thatsouthern state and in the Hispanic and British Caribbean. As we will see,Louisiana-born and trained managerial, technical and skilled personnel, known as"sugar tramps," played key roles in the development of the Caribbean sugarindustry until their substitution by locals well into the twentieth century.1 Thelargest sugar factories were located in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.The South Porto Rico Sugar Company of New Jersey (SPRSCO/NJ), one of themost enterprising and innovative U.S. corporations in the region, will be used as acase study.

Historical Context

During the second half of the nineteenth century, sugar self-sufficiency by theUnited States seemed an attainable goal to government officials, sugar planters, andscientists.2 During the Civil War, to counter the scarce cane sugar and molassescoming from the South, the Department of Agriculture started experiments withsugar beets. In 1876, a Louisiana cane planter wrote: “it is beyond a doubt that theUnited States could produce all the sugar needed for their consumption.”3

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), appointed chief chemist of theDepartment of Agriculture in 1883 and a staunch believer in sugar self-sufficiency,pursued a three-pronged policy of promoting sugar production on the U.S.mainland, specifically sugar cane in Louisiana, sugar beet in the West, and

1W.S. Daubert, “The Passing of the Sugar Tramp,” Sugar Journal (June 1950): 17.2William Lloyd Fox, “Harvey W. Wiley's Search for American Sugar Self-

Sufficiency,” Agricultural History 54 (1980): 516.3M.A. Montejo, American Central Sugar Factories (New Orleans, LA: Pelican

Book and Job Printing Office, 1876), 7.

sorghum, mainly in Kansas.4 Sorghum experiments failed, but those with sugarbeets and sugar cane succeeded. The beet and cane sugar industries really took offduring the 1890s, thanks in great part to the tariff protection against lower-costCaribbean and Pacific imports.5

U.S. sugar interests were not confined to cane and beet sugar producershowever. Also included was the refining sector, dominated by the American SugarRefining Co. (ASRCO or the Sugar Trust). Sugar refining predated raw sugarproduction in the continental United States by a century.6 Established in 1887, theSugar Trust brought together 17 of the 23 U.S.-based sugar refineries into onecorporation, achieving a virtual monopoly that controlled 98 percent of U.S. refinedsugar output.7 In 1891, to contest litigation for violations of the Sherman Anti-TrustAct, the company changed form and incorporated in New Jersey as a holdingcompany. ASRCO was a new corporate name for the same industrial organization.With his penchant for coining the right phrase, its president, Henry O. Havemeyer,said: “Well, from being illegal as we were, we are now legal as we are; changeenough, isn't so?”8

The domestic beet and sugar cane industries and the Sugar Trust had contrarypositions regarding the raw sugar tariff, with the former favoring a high one toprotect its home market and the latter advocating a low tariff to import low-cost rawmaterial. The price of raw sugar obviously was crucial to production costs for sugarrefiners, being the major input into the refining process. Refiners' profitabilitydepended largely on maintaining a hefty supply of low cost raw sugars.Accordingly, the Sugar Trust aimed “to keep supply within demand and thus insurea comfortable margin for the refining industry.”9

U.S. government protection and promotion of cane and beet sugar succeededonly partially. The Sugar Trust needed imported raw sugar to meet U.S. marketdemand, and to forestall any opposition went on to buy a controlling share in thecontinental beet and cane sugar industries. The imperial war of 1898 ended U.S.

4John Searles, “American Sugar,” in Chauncey M. Depwe, ed., One Hundred Years

of American Commerce (New York, NY: D.O. Haynes & Co., 1895), 257-61.5Wilton Harry Spencer, “Economics of the American Sugar Industry: Market

Behavior and Government Policy,” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1954, 5.6See C.A. Browne, “The Early Sugar Refining Industry of New York,” The

Reference Book of the World Sugar Industry (New York, NY: Louisiana Planter andSugar Manufacturer Co., 1924), 31-8.

7See Alfred S. Eichner, The Emergence of Oligopoly: Sugar Refining as a CaseStudy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969).

8Quoted in Jack Simpson Mullins, “The Sugar Trust: Henry O. Havemeyer and theAmerican Sugar Refining Company,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina,1964, 73.

9Paul L. Vogt, The Sugar Refining Industry in the United States. Its Developmentand Present Condition (Philadelphia, PA: Publications of the University of Pennsylvania,1908), 54.

bad dreams about sugar scarcity, but gave nightmares to continental producers,particularly Louisiana planters.10 By 1909 raw sugars from Hawaii, the Philippinesand Puerto Rico entered duty-free and Cuba's with a reduced rate of 20 percent, allareas with dependencies or quasi-dependencies status with the United States. Thus,the U.S. sugar complex included sugar factories in the Caribbean, the continentalUnited States and the Pacific Ocean, and sugar refineries in cities of the U.S.eastern, southern and western coasts. The oligopoly exercised by the Sugar Trust,managed from New York City, connected and controlled several parts of thiscomplicated structure.

The Development of Louisiana's Sugar Industry

Noël Deere advanced that Louisiana may be “the last of the sugar colonies.”11

Starting in 1816, the tariff protected and fomented a small, unstable sugar caneindustry in the southeast quarter of Louisiana, although soil and climate conditionswere not entirely favorable. Louisiana was the most important producer for theU.S. market until 1850.12 The U.S. Civil War destroyed Louisiana's sugar industry,already struck by disease since 1854, yet it recovered quickly. Still, Louisianacould not retain the same share of the U.S. market. The surge of the Sugar Trust incontrolling the U.S. sugar market partially hides the success story of Louisianaplanters during the second part of the nineteenth century, and its impact on theCaribbean sugar industry. Louisiana's sugar industry expanded significantly whileits Caribbean counterparts became stagnant, even experiencing a downturn,because of the fall in prices due to the competition of European subsidized beetsugar.

The development of Louisiana's sugar industry since the 1870s is linkedclosely with the Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association (LSPA), established in 1877.The LSPA convinced the Department of Agriculture to investigate cultivation andmanufacturing problems of sugar cane and established a private sugar experimentstation, the first of its kind in the world. It also began publishing a weekly tradejournal, The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer (LPSM) in 1988.13 Tofoster the use of scientific methods in agriculture, the Department of Agriculture

10Glenn R. Conrad & Ray F. Lucas, White Gold: A Brief History of the Louisiana

Sugar Industry 1795-1995 (Lafayette, LA: The Center for Louisiana Studies, Universityof Southwestern Louisiana, 1995), 59.

11Noël Deere, The History of Sugar, Vol. 1 (London: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1949),248.

12J. Carlyle Sitterson, “Expansion, Reversion and Revolution in the Southern SugarIndustry: 1850-1910,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 27(3)(September1953): 129.

13See W.C. Stubbs, "Origin and Evolution of the Sugar Industry in Louisiana," inHenry Rightor, ed., Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana (Chicago, IL: TheLewis Publishing Co., 1900), 645-726.

and the LSPA concurred in the establishment of a sugar experiment station in 1885,which led to the creation of the Audubon Sugar School in 1891.14

Calumet Experiments

The Department of Agriculture also found fertile ground in the LSPA for itsplans for national sufficiency. Dr. Wiley assigned chemists Hubert Edson, hisnephew, and Dr. Guilford L. Spencer to sugar factories of LSPA's leadingmembers.15 In 1888-1889, Edson went to the Calumet sugar factory. Calumet wasowned and managed by Daniel Thompson (a civil engineer-turned businessperson),with his son Wibray J. Thompson (a graduate of Cornell University, with apostgraduate course in the School of Mines of Columbia University, andAssociated Editor of the LPSM) serving as superintendent.16

Daniel Thompson was born in Maine in 1821 and educated at NorwichUniversity, Vermont. Thompson was a member of the Chicago Board of Tradefrom 1854 to 1882 and a director in the Union and First National Banks of Chicagofrom 1869 to 1871. In the 1870s, he moved to Louisiana and acquired Calumet inSt. Mary's Parish. As an LSPA member, Daniel Thompson was an advocate of thescientific culture and manufacture of sugar cane. He pioneered the application offertilizers by employing Dr. C. A. Goessman, of the Massachusetts AgriculturalCollege, who had previously studied soil conditions and methods of sugarmanufacture in Cuba. However, the results of the experiments turned out to beinconclusive.17

Wibray J. Thompson had been for a time a practical student at one of the NewYork sugar refineries. He later traveled to Germany and Cuba to study sugarindustries there. In relation to his trip to Cuba in 1887, his father wrote that “helearned little of use to us in the business.”18 Wibray J. Thompson introduced acomplete system of statistical data, which led him to realize the value of chemicalanalysis for factory work. He applied to the Department of Agriculture for achemist and they assigned Edson to Calumet. Edson's work opened a new phase insugar cane milling, leading to the introduction of more powerful and efficient

14See Alfred Charles True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and

Research in the United States 1607-1925 (Washington, DC: Government PrintingOffice, 1937), 104-5.

15Charles E. Coates, “Guilford Lawson Spencer,” LPSM 34(14)(4 April 1925): 267.16LPSM 23(22)(25 November 1899): 349; LPSM 69(3)(20 July 1912): 50; and H.

Edson, “Wibray J. Thompson,” LPSM 79(1)(2 July 1927): 18-19.17See John Alfred Heitmann, The Modernization of the Louisiana Sugar Industry,

1830-1910 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 65.18C.L. Marquette, ed., “Letters of a Yankee Sugar Planter,” The Journal of Southern

History 6(4) (November, 1940): 543.

grinding tandems and the end of interest in the application of the diffusion processin the sugar cane industry.19

With the able management of Daniel Thompson, the scientific acumen ofWibray J. Thompson, and the flawless execution of Hubert Edson, CalumetPlantation became Louisiana's leading private research center, with manyexperiments in field and factory carried on during the 1890s. For example, 1891and 1892 experiments on cane seed selection which concluded that the planting ofsugar cane of high sucrose content produced better cane, had to wait until 1900 forconfirmation by the Sugar Experiment Station.20 In a letter to The Sugar Beetcalling attention to this discovery, Wibray J. Thompson noted that “the ultimateeffect upon the world's sugar cane industry of the improvement thus demonstratedpossibly should, it seems to me, be revolutionary in its character.”21

Centralization

At the end of the nineteenth century, southern Louisiana underwent the samecentralization process in its sugar industry that was taking place in severalCaribbean territories. In 1892, Wibray J. Thompson echoed Caribbean planterswhen he declared that the main obstacle facing Louisiana's industry was thecombination of cane cultivation and manufacture under the same management andthat the remedy was the establishment of central factories.22

The centralization process caused a change in the personnel required tomanage the field and the factory. The introduction of chemists into the factory inthe 1880s was a transition stage in the modernization of the industry. Chemistswere “able to point the losses” in the manufacture process, but “unable to apply theremedy,” while the engineers were unable to apply “the remedy . . . owing of theirlack of technical knowledge of the subject.” The development of a newprofessional, the chemical engineer, combining "both the chemical knowledge andthe technical training," was the key to the complete modernization of the industry.23

In response to the centralization process, the Sugar Experiment Stationincluded the sugar-manufacturing processes in its research agenda. The AudubonSugar School did not fare well. The depression in the Louisiana sugar industry andthe Cuban war of independence, both starting in the mid-1890s, dried up the

19Hubert Edson, Sugar from Scarcity to Surplus (New York, NY: Chemical

Publishing Co., 1958), 56-7.20J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753-

1950 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1953), 269-70.21Wibray J. Thompson, Calumet Plantation, to The Sugar Beet, 3 August 1893,

Lewis A. Ware Collection, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.22Sitterson, op. cit., 259.23Magnus Swenson, “The Chemical Engineer,” Bulletin of the University of

Wisconsin, Engineering Series 2 (1900): 199-200.

number of students. When the Cuban independence war broke out, 15 Cubanstudents attending the School were suddenly recalled.24

Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean Links

The Audubon Sugar School could not survive as a privately fundedinstitution. Louisiana State University (LSU) president, Thomas D. Boyd Sr.,incorporated the School as a five-year program starting in 1897.25 In 1900, theSchool was proud of the numbers of students coming from foreign countries, suchas Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Venezuela,Spain, Mexico, Hawaii, England and Scotland. By 1908, the School's success led toits reorganization as a college of the LSU.

As the School matured in the university environment, the original objective oftraining planters' sons for future employment in Louisiana changed: “it now trainedexperts for the international sugar industry, particularly Cuba's large sugarfactories.”26 John Heitmann's assessment, unsupported by evidence in his valuablework, is correct regarding the Cuban sugar industry in 192027 (see Table 1).Talking about Cuba, President Thomas D. Boyd, Sr., said

The factories, over which these LSU alumni exercise more or lesssupervision and control, manufactured this year one third of thetotal sugar crop of the island. These men are paid high salaries, oneof them receiving as much as seventy-five thousand dollars ayear.28

The Louisiana link with the Caribbean sugar industry extended farther thanCuba. In Puerto Rico, more than half of the centrales engaged Louisiana men,more than in Cuba (see Table 2).29 In 1913, they supervised or controlled at least

24See “Audubon Sugar School,” Gumbo 1 (1900): 73.25Also Tulane University, a private university in New Orleans, offered at the turn of

the century a program in sugar chemistry and sugar engineering. Cuban students againcomprised most of the student body. See Heitmann, Modernization, 230-43, 260-2.

26Heitmann, ibid., 230.27Noted Cuban historian, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, ignores the Louisiana presence

at Cuban mills and instead writes that a white, native and immigrant labor force handledthe new technologically complicated equipment of the centrales. See Manuel MorenoFraginals, “Agricultural Backwardness--Industrial Development: Experiences of SugarProduction in the Caribbean,” in Mats Lundahl & Thommy Svensson, eds., AgrarianSociety in History, Essays in Honor of Magnus Mörner (London: Routledge, 1990), 135.

28Thomas D. Boyd, “Notice!, 6 July 1920,” T.D. Boyd Private Papers, SpecialCollections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafter referred to as TDBPP,LSU].

29A small number of Puerto Rican laborers migrated to Louisiana but it was notsatisfactory. See LPSM 37(12))22 Sep 1906): 178; LPSM 37(14)(6 Oct 1906): 710-11;

155,000 tons of a total production of nearly 400,00 tons. The predominance of U.S.managers and technicians was also documented in the Dominican Republic. In1912, H.C. Prinsen Geerligs noted that, except for “the Cristóbal Colón factory,which belongs to the Cubans, all sugar factories are under Americanmanagement.”30 Again, as seen in Table 3, Louisiana-trained managers andpersonnel occupied important positions, with Romana Central leading the pack.

Louisiana-British Caribbean Links

Few Louisiana men worked on the British sugar circuit. Yet, in 1970, J.W.Waldron was called to introduce Louisiana cane methods in the sugar factory canefield of Antigua.31 Others were L. Litty, a sugar boiler, and L.J.B. Mestier, chiefchemist and superintendent in the Colonial Company's Usine Ste. Madelaine inTrinidad.32 Articles about the Louisiana sugar industry published in LPSM werereprinted in the leading papers of Trinidad.33

In 1924, Overton D. Boyd, younger son of T.D. Boyd, Sr., president of LSU,was appointed a sugar technologist in charge of the experimental sugar station atthe Imperial College of Agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago. His appointment wasconsidered a “compliment to the work of the sugar school” at LSU.34 Before hisappointment, he had been a chemist with Standard Oil and worked in the sugarindustry in Louisiana, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the sugarbeet industry in California.

Generally, the different Caribbean sugar industries fell within their respectivecolonial or neo-colonial spheres. The employment of Lsu-educated men wasrecognition of their knowledge of the sugar trade at a time of “backwardness” in theBritish Caribbean sugar industry. Norman Lamont blamed the abundance oflaborers working for a low wage and “the extreme rarity of skilled scientificdirection” for this state.35

and LPSM 38(1)(5 Jan 1907):2.

30H.C. Prinsen Geerligs, The World's Cane Sugar Industry: Past and Present (NewYork, NY: Norman Rodger, 1912), 195.

31See LPSM 39(17)(26 Oct 1907): 259.32See LPSM 50(17)(26 Ap 1913): 268.33Howard Johnson, “The Origins of Cane Farming in Trinidad,” The Journal of

Caribbean History 5 (November 1972): 48.34“Overton F. Boyd Appointed Sugar Technologist of the Agricultural College of

Trinidad,” LPSM 72(17)(26 Apr 1924): 339. See also Arthur Rosenfeld to Overton F.Boyd, 17 August 1924, Family Papers, Box 1, TDBPP,LSU, and “Overton Boyd,” BatonRouge Morning Advocate, 27 November 1951. He was the author of “PlantationGranulated Sugar Direct from the Cane,” LPSM 70(20)(22 Sep 1923): 387-8; “Sir FrancisWatts--An Appreciation,” LPSM 72(20)(16 May 1924): 392; and “The Model SugarFactory of the Imperial College of Agriculture, Trinidad, B.W.I.,” LPSM 75(2)(11 Jul1925): 28-30.

35Norman Lamont, “The West Indies: A Warning and A Way,” The EmpireReview (Great Britain) 4(19)(August, 1902): 83.

South Porto Rico Sugar Company Of New Jersey: A Case Study

No company better illustrates the Louisiana-Hispanic Caribbean link than theSPRSCO/NJ, a U.S. multinational corporation that owned Guanica Central inPuerto Rico and Romana Central in the Dominican Republic, the largest sugarfactories in both islands.36 SPRSCO/NJ recruited its top and middle managementas well as its technical and skilled personnel right at home, in Louisiana.Louisiana's sugar industry provided Guanica Central with its share of experiencedpersonnel. Furthermore, LSU supplied SPRSCO/NJ with competent graduates,some of whom attained the company's highest positions in Puerto Rico andelsewhere in the Caribbean.

The Louisiana connection with Guanica Central started early, centering onmanagement and sugar manufacture, namely, the factory side. In this article, I willlimit myself to the most important, such as Adrian J. Greif, general manager andvice-president of Guanica Central, his successor, French T. Maxwell, and ofCalumet fame, the Thompsons and Hubert Edson, who considered himself “atransplanted Louisianan to some extent.”37

Adrian Greif, a Louisiana native, became general manager on GuanicaCentral's second year of operation. Greif had been a superintendent at the SouthernDivision of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad.38 He left the railroadbusiness in 1902 and became general superintendent at Central Constancia inCuba.39 While in Cuba, he attracted SPRSCO/NJ's attention and was asked to takecharge of Guanica Central. Because of Guanica Central's huge milling capacity,Greif's railroad experience was vital for SPRSCO/NJ's expansion. His obituarystated that Guanica Central “was but a small plant, but, under Mr. Greif'smanagement, soon became one of the leading sugar factories of the world.”40

Greif's impact on Guanica Central's management system was long lasting.Modern managerial systems started in the railroads, a business enterprise whosecomplexity required the appointment of salaried managers and the organization offunctional departments and continual flow of information for its operation.41 Greif

36See Humberto García Muñiz, “The South Porto Rico Sugar Company: The

History of a U.S. Multinational Corporation in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic,1900-1921,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1997.

37Edson, Sugar, 58.38LPSM 30(26)(29 Jul 1903): 406.39Ibid.40“Adrian J. Greif,” LPSM 73(15)(11 Oct 1924): 292.41Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in

American Business (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,1977), 81-121.

applied a similar system at Guanica Central by dividing “Guanica operations intomany departments, each of which had a supervisor who reported directly to him.”42

French T. Maxwell, Greif's successor, was the most prominent of thegraduates in the sugar profession from the LSU. Maxwell graduated in 1894 with aBachelor of Science degree and was the first to appear under the denomination of“sugar chemist” in the Catalogue of the university.43 A member of the AlumniSociety, he later urged T. D. Boyd Sr. to accept the presidency of LSU.44

During the mid-1890s and early 1900s, Maxwell was a chemist in severalsugar estates in Louisiana. He advised his father-in-law, Senator J. D. Fisher, ofBaton Rouge, during the purchase of a large Mexican estate as he “had longexperience in connection with the sugar industry of our sister Republic.”45 From1902 to 1910, he was engaged by the Cuban American Sugar Company asmanufacturing superintendent of the Centrales Chaparra and Delicias “where someremarkable records as to yield and outputs were accomplished under hismanagement.”46 He also acquired a large Cuban plantation, in a district “which willbe favorably affected by the operation of the Manati Sugar Company's factory.”47

In 1911, he became a superintendent at Guanica Central.48

Paradoxically, the Thompsons of Calumet Plantation, forerunners of privatesugar cane research in Louisiana, ended working for Guanica Central. DanielThompson died in 1900, and his son Wibray J. Thompson took over CalumetPlantation, but, because of indebtedness, lost it in 1903.49 Other sugar companiesengaged Wibray J. Thompson to work at the managerial level. In 1909, he had sixsugar houses under his supervision, belonging or affiliated with the LouisianaSugar Company.50 He also worked in Mexico and Cuba.51 In 1911, after

42Edson, Sugar, 95.43Before the integration of the Audubon Sugar School, the university offered

postgraduate courses in agricultural chemistry. Trips to sugar houses in the vicinityduring the grinding season were part of the course. Catalogue of the Louisiana StateUniversity and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, Louisnana, for 1893-94 (Baton Rouge, LA: The Advocate, 1894), 41.

44Marcus M. Wilkerson, Thomas Duckett Boyd: The Story of a Southern Educator(Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 1935), 135.

45LPSM 24(3)(20 Jan 1900): 367.46LPSM 47(1)(1 Jul 1911): 4.47See LPSM 49(11)(14 Sep 1912): 176, and W.R. Dobson, Director, Sugar

Experiment Station, to Dr. W.H. Dalrymple, Baton Rouge, 5 January 1905, TDBPP,LSU.48See Catalogue of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and

Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for 1912 (Baton Rouge, LA: TheAdvocate, 1912), 281., and “French T. Maxwell,” The New York Times, 21 March 1946,25.

49See A. Bouchereau, Statement of the Sugar Crop Made in Louisiana in 1902-03(New Orleans, LA: M.F. Dunn & Bro., Stationers & Printers, 1904), 11.

50"Personal," LPSM 43(20))13 November 1909): 309.51In Mexico, he was employed in building a modern sugar factory for a U.S.

company and was contracted by some Chicago capitalists to look at several ventures. See

SPRSCO/NJ's acquisition of Central Fortuna, Thompson took the same positionthere.

Wibray J.'s son, Daniel Thompson, came to the employ of Guanica Central inthe early 1900s. His experience included a month's research and study in theGlenwield factory and work as assistant chemist at Cinclare central factory, both inLouisiana.52 He had also been in Camagüey in Cuba and Mexico. Father and sondismantled Central Fortuna.53 Wibray J. Thompson retired after the Fortuna closedand resided with his son in the sugar town of Ensenada, where he died on 20 May1927.54 In a nostalgic remembrance, when receiving the wedding invitation ofDaniel Thompson in 1912, John Dymond, editor of the LPSM, wrote that

The occasion brings memories of years back when this DanielThompson was a baby boy in the arms of his nurse when wewere visiting Calumet plantation…55

In 1918, responding to market needs during the World War I, SPRSCO/NJcompleted the construction of Central Romana in La Romana, DominicanRepublic. On 5 June 1916 Louisiana-trained chemical engineer Ernest L. Klock hadbeen appointed the administrator to supervise factory construction and manage fieldand factory operations.56 SPRSCO/NJ also named Louisiana-trained T. D. Boyd Jr.general superintendent of Guanica Central in October 1918.57

Born in Ontario, Canada, in the late 1880s and raised in a plantation inCheneyville, Louisiana, Klock came from a sugar background. In 1888, his father,John C. Klock, a sugar planter, developed the first mechanical cane-loader in theCheneyville area, which he later patented.58 Ernest L. Klock studied at LSU,

LPSM 34(12)(25 Mar 1905): 184; LPSM 36(2)(13 Jan 1906): 31; LPSM 43(15)(9 Oct1909): 228; LPSM 46(26)(17 Jun 1913): 382; LPSM 47(12)(16 Sep 1911): 193; andLPSM 50(26)(28 Jun 1913): 411.

52LPSM 43(21)(20 Nov 1909): 324.53Faith Thompson Schall, interview with author, 2 September 1982, Cataño, Puerto

Rico, Author's Files. Also present Betsaida Vélez Natal. Born at Central Fortuna, FaithChompson Schall was the daughter of Daniel Thompson, Jr.

54“Wibray J. Thompson,” LPSM 78(22)(28 May 1927): 434.55“Daniel Thompson,” LPSM 49(3)(20 Jul 1912): 50.56Francisco Richiez Dicoudray, “Registro de La Romana,” 65. The author thanks

Dr. Frank Moya Pons for lending him the original copy of the register.57“South Porto Rico Sugar Company. Minutes of Adjourned Special Meeting of

Board of Directors, 27 September 1918,” Colección South Porto Rico SugarCompany/New Jersey, Fideicomiso de Conservaciíon de Puerto Rico.

58“Ernest Lorne Klock,” The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 2, Biographical (NewOrleans, LA: J.F. Hyer Publishing Co., 1960). The author thanks John C. Klock andThomas S. Klock for answering a detailed questionnaire about their father, Ernest L.Klock, and mother, Hazel Sewell Klock.

receiving degrees in mechanical engineering and in sugar chemistry.59 In 1905, heworked as chemist in the Shadyside Sugar Factory in Louisiana, and in 1906 at theEl Dorado Sugar Co. in Mexico. Klock then moved for several seasons to Cuba,working as superintendent in Central Vertientes and Central Niquero.60 Like otherso-called “sugar tramps,” he returned to Louisiana for the crop there. In 1909, forinstance, he was an assistant fabrication superintendent of the Gramercy plant ofthe ASRCO.61 Maxwell persuaded Klock to leave Cuba and join Central Romanafor the construction of the sugar mill at La Romana. He arrived, with his wife HazelSewell, two sons, and a servant.62

The appointment of T.D. Boyd, Jr. as general superintendent perhaps bestpersonifies the Louisiana connection, however. Hubert Edson, president of WestIndia Management and Consultation Co., had tried to lure Boyd Jr. to work in theconstruction of central factories in Cuba and the Dominican Republic in 1915. Heconsidered the offer “an excellent one,” but voiced reservations: “I have visions ofspending 4 years in the tropics if I join them. This I am not at all willing to do.”63

Still, by 1918, Boyd Jr. was working with SPRSCO/NJ in the tropics, underMaxwell and with responsibilities in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Boyd Jr. was very well known and respected in sugar circles in theCaribbean, Central and North America. It helped that he was the oldest son ofT.D. Boyd, president of LSU, who had given ample support and promotion tothe Audubon Sugar School. Yet, in a short time, Boyd Jr. had created anindependent name for himself. Born in Baton Rouge, on 3 November 1882, hegraduated from LSU with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1901. He completedfour full years in general science, specializing in chemistry. After graduation,between sugar seasons, he also studied mechanics and chemistry related to themanufacture of sugar and alcohol at the Audubon Sugar School, CornellUniversity, and the Fermentation Institute in Berlin, Germany. His first job cameas an assistant chemist, working under French T. Maxwell on the plantation ofJames A. Ware, of Louisiana's Iberville Parish. He also worked in laboratories atCalumet and Shadyside plantations.64 The profession also took him to CentralTinguaro in Cuba, Ingenio San Antonio in Nicaragua, and Central Constancia inMexico.

Boyd Jr. settled in Mexico for five years. The United Sugar Companiesengaged him to run two sugar factories in Los Mochis in Sinaloa. He earned a

59Gumbo 1906-1907 (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU, 1907), 108.60See LPSM 47(1)(1 Jul 1911): 9; LPSM 49(5)(3 Aug 1912): 21, 82; LPSM 21 (22

Nov 1913): 353; LPSM 55(3)(3 Jul 1915): 9; and LPSM 57(7)(12 Aug 1916): 106.61LPSM 43(19)(6 Nov 1909): 299.62Clarence Mathews to J.H. Edwards, 16 June 1919, and Mathews to Consul, Santo

Domingo, 6 August 1919, Record Group 84, Consular Correspondence of La Romana,National Archives, Washington, DC.

63T.D. Boyd, Jr., to T.D. Boyd, 12 October 1912. See also T.D. Boyd, Jr., to T.D.Boyd, 9 September 1915, TDBPP, LSU.

64See LPSM 31(11)(17 Sep 1903): 163; and LPSM 33(15)(5 Oct 1904): 243.

salary of $10,000, plus living and traveling expenses and a commission on thefactories' output. When he resigned in 1916, he formed a mercantile andcommission business that exported sugar and other Mexican products and importedU.S. merchandise into Mexico.65 In 1917, he went to the Officers’ Training Campat Presidio, California, but resigned to accept an SPRSCO/NJ's proposal in early1918.66

Within SPRSCO/NJ's Caribbean operations, Boyd Jr. became the mostimportant official after Maxwell, and handled jobs in Puerto Rico and theDominican Republic. In 1918, 1919 and 1920, Boyd, Jr. supervised fieldexperiments at Central Romana. Conscious of the devastation caused by the mosaicdisease in SPRSCO/NJ's cane fields in Puerto Rico, he wanted, but failed, toconduct small experiments on varieties.67 Boyd Jr. spent four years atSPRSCO/NJ's service, leaving in 1922 to accept a more important position in Cuba.He became supervising manager of the centrales that the National City Bank tookover and managed under Cuban Sugar Plantations, Inc.68

Sugar Tramps

In 1908, the so-called “sugar tramps” formed the Louisiana Engineers,Chemists' and Sugar Makers' Association (LECSMA), an unchartered associationuntil legally incorporated in October 1913. It grouped most sugar tramps, namely,“the men who operate all the important stations in the great factories of Cuba, PortoRico, Louisiana, Mexico and the tropical sugar world overall.”69

In 1911, LECSMA listed 115 members, with 104 residing in Louisiana.70 In1914, LECSMA hired a professor of Spanish, M.L. Piedra, to teach the language toits members.71 The trip from New Orleans to the Caribbean islands was anexperience to remember. Old sugar tramps exchanged stories, while newcomerssought to learn about their future working places. At the end of every Caribbeancrop season, the sugar tramps left for new destinations:

Every outgoing steamer now carries a number of owners,chemists, superintendents and a few of the engineers for a

65Information taken from letters of recommendation deposited in T.D. Boyd, Jr.'s

Private Papers, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, LSU [hereinafterTDBJrPP,LSU].

66See T.D. Boyd to L.S. Boyd, 8 Nov 1917, TDBPP,LSU67See Humberto García Muñiz, “Interregional Transfer of Biological Technology in

the Caribbean: The Impact of Barbados' John R. Bovell's Cane Research on the PuertoRican Sugar Industry, 1888-1920s,” Revista Mexicana del Caribe II(3)(1997): 6-40.

68LPSM 69(16)(14 Oct 1912): 271.69LPSM 41(23)(5 Dec 1908): 365; and LPSM 51(16)(18 Oct 1913): 280.70See LPSM 47(17)(21 Oct 1921): 272-3.71See LPSM 58(8)(22 Aug 1914): 120.

well-earned holiday, and within the next few weeks things willbe very quiet on the plantations.72

Only two known exceptions in the tropical tour of sugar tramps broke the ruleof male exclusivity. Guanica Central took the lead with the employment of MissJessie Farr as chief chemist in 1911.73 The other took place in 1920 when theHaitian American Sugar Co., with a factory outside Port-au-Prince, contracted five“Louisiana girls...who will be the first women to engage in sugar factory work inthe western world.”74 The women were Inez Greenwood, Sidonia Gingry, AnneHaggerty, Irma Stevens and Alice Dean. Ms. Greenwood, daughter of a manager ofthe Belle Alliance plantation, had been head chemist at the Tally-Ho plant of theMurrels at Bayou Goula in the previous Louisiana campaign. This could have beenan initiative of A.J. Greif since he occupied high positions in both companies.75

The different seasonality in cane and beet sugar regions allowed commutingby sugar tramps. A typical annual schedule of a sugar tramp started with theLouisiana campaign, which lasted from October to January, then he traveled toCuba, the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico for the crop months of January toJune. The most enterprising ones continued to the beet campaign in the Midwesternstates or California. Thus, the seasons were not competitive but complementary,with important differences between the Louisiana and Caribbean crops.

Trade unions did not welcome the coming of the sugar tramps. In 1914, theleading trade union in Puerto Rico, the Free Federation of Workingmen(Federación Libre de Trabajadores), criticized the outflow of monies implied bythe hiring of U.S. technical personnel, specifically chemists, sugar boilers andmechanics.76 As local labor started to replace some of them, initially those intechnical factory jobs, the number of sugar tramps dwindled. In 1916, the NewYork-Porto Rico Steamship Line eliminated the New Orleans-Caribbean routebecause it was a losing proposition.77

72“Porto Rico,” LPSM 48(24)(15 Jun 1912): 428.73LPSM 47(19)(7 Nov 1911): 319.74LPSM 59(4)(24 Jan 1920): 57. A.J. Grief was the first general manager of the

Haitian American Sugar Co. See Edson, Sugar, 152-60.75LPSM 57(3)(15 Jul 1916): 36.76“La riqueza de Puerto Rico, ¿qué puede hacer la Legislatura?” Justicia (official

organ of the Free Federation of Workingmen), 4 October 1914, 4. LSU also preparedPuerto Ricans, who went on to hold positions in local colleges and sugar companies. Forinstance, Edmundo D. Colón, who obtained a Masters of Science, was a professor ofchemistry at the College of Agriculture in Mayagüez, chemist at the Insular ExperimentStation, director of the Bureau of Agriculture of the Department of Agriculture, andadministrator and superintendent of field operations in Central Plazuela. Anothergraduate with an impressive sugar career was Francisco López Domínguez. See LPSM50(13)(30 Mar 1918): 194-5, and “Francisco López Domínguez, Secretary of Industryand Commerce,”The Economic Review (June 1939): 34-38.

77Franklin D. Mooney, President of the New York-Porto Rico Steamship Line, to

Some claim that the Vieques sugar strike of 1920 heralded the end of thesugar tramps who were dedicated to the technical work related to sugarmanufacture and cane supply. Puerto Rican chemists and sugar makers reportedlyformed a union and were ready to strike for an eight-hour day, a 100 percent salaryincrease, better living conditions, accident insurance, and contracts lasting for theentire crop season instead of monthly accords. Louisiana's John P. Connolly,superintendent of Central Playa Grande, told Louisiana chemists: “it looks as ifthey will demand that the union reign supreme with regard to the Porto Rican workin which the unionists are engaged.”78

By the 1920s, the sugar tramps started to disappear, with only those in topmanagement as SPRSCO/NJ's French T. Maxwell or highly skilled ones likeDaniel Thompson settling in one central and spending their professional life there.U.S. companies employed most of the sugar tramps that worked permanently orcame seasonally. Puerto Rico's Association of Sugar Technologists was organized in 1922.Although Americans and other foreigners were members (its first president wasCentral Aguirre's Frank Sumner Earle), Puerto Ricans held the majority in theexecutive board.79 That decade the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts inMayagüez improved its equipment and course offerings. By 1927, Puerto Ricansugar expert Francisco López Domínguez said it “is materially helping to solve ourfield and factory problems, by supplying trained chemists and agriculturists tosupervise the work at the factory and in the field.”80

To conclude, the Louisiana sugar planters profiting from the growth of thesugar industry during the second half of the nineteenth century spurred theestablishment of an institutional infrastructure that provided the managerial,technical and other skilled people necessary to efficiently operate the newtechnology of the central factory. The consecutive nature of the crop seasons ofLouisiana, the Caribbean and beet sugar in the continental United States allowedthe sugar tramps to move from one to the other. Sugar tramps took over field andfactory operations in the Hispanic Caribbean as U.S. capital opened new factoriesin Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Capital from the eastern UnitedStates financed the new centrales, while Louisiana's sugar tramps managed andoperated them. The end of Louisiana's sugar tramps came slowly; substitution by

Frank McIntyre, 6 April 1916, Record Group 350 Bureau of Insular Affairs, Entry 5, Box417, Document 2339-81, National Archives, Washington, DC.

78"Louisiana Sugar News," LPSM 55(3)(17 Jul 1920): 41.79Francisco López Domínguez, "The Association of Sugar Technologists," in

E.Fernández García, ed., El libro de Puerto Rico/The Book of Porto Rico (San Juan, PR:El Libro Azul Publishing Co., 1923), 943-5.

80F.A. López Domínguez, "The Origin and Development of the Sugar Industry inPorto Rico," LPSM 79(7)(13 Aug 1917): 124.

local personnel hinged on the establishment of courses related to the sugar industryin the local technical schools, colleges or universities.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Betsaida Vélez Natal and Faye Phillips, Assistant Dean forSpecial Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, for theirassistance.

Table 1

Louisiana State University Alumni Workingin Central Factories in Cuba, 1920

Name Year of Graduation PositionCentral Delicias, Delicias, Oriente

Bergman, C.A.Best, AlfredMallen, FranciscoWalsh, Henry

19141898

1916 and 19191906

Engineer Dept.SuperintendentEngineer Dept.Chemist

Central Moron, Pina, CamagueyAdam, MauriceDomínguez, E.E.Tarleton, P.C.

191619161905

Ass’t SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendent

Central Stewart, CamagueyKeller, A.J.Klock, A.E.Pressburg, C.N.

191119101915

SuperintendentChief ChemistAss’t Superintendent

Central Jagueyal, Jagueyal, CamagueyDracket, E.W.Jacobs, H.J.Kahn, M.B.

191519171914

Assistant ChemistChief ChemistAss’t Superintendent

Central Lugareño, Lugareño, CamagueyHancock, J.M. 1906 Superintendent

Central Socorro, MatanzasJolly, J.H.Seip, J.J.

19131910 and 1911

ChemistSuperintendent

Central Alava, MatanzasTorrent, J.L. 1915 Acting Superintendent

Central Mercedes, MatanzasChiquelin, S.C. Sugar Experimental Station

1894Superintendent

Central Francisco, CamaguezIsacks, A.J.Klaus, S.

19121919

SuperintendentChemist

Central Washington, Santa ClaraCade, Overton 1906 Superintendent

Central Florida, CamagueyByrd, C.R.Holmes, R.H.Perkins, C.Stevens, A.J.

1920191319151918

----SuperintendentAss't Superintendent----

Central Alto Cedro, OrienteLabayen, S.D.Matthews, A.C.

19171911

----Superintendent

Table 1, continued.

Central Santa Cecilia, Guantanamo, OrienteBolin, D.C. 1916 ----

Punta Alegre, Sugar Co., Punta San Juan, Camaguey

Capdeville, C.C.Etheredge, J.C.Ferro, B.J.Hochenedel, B.F.

1911191819141908

----Chief ChemistSuperintendentAssistant Manager

Central Hershey, HavanaBrian, W.L.Eckard, V.H.Magruder, N.

190719131913

----SuperintendentAss’t Superintendent

Central Manati, OrienteFridge, E.Mundinger, W.G.

19051912

SuperintendentAss’t Superintendent

Central Teresa, OrienteChioco, J.Gianelloni, V.J.Tiglao, José

191919131920

ChemistSuperintendentChemist

Central Isabel, OrienteButler, S. 1908 ----

Cuba Cane Sugar Co., BarragueMunson, J.J.Nadler, Carl

19141912 and 1913

Ass’t Chief Engineer----

Central Baragua, CamagueyHale, T.F. 1919 Chief Chemist

Central Elia, Camaguey

Blouin, F.R.Moore, E.R.

19091916

SuperintendentAss’t Superintendent

Central Tainucu, Santa Clara

Levy, E.S. 1914 Chief Chemist

Central Niquero, OrienteGunther, J.F.Jumonville, L.J.Roger, W.L.Smith, Walker

1911 and 191219171911

1910 and 1913

Ass’t SuperintendentChemist----Superintendent

Central Fe, Santa ClaraAlbright, A.J. 1911 ----

Central Progreso, MatanzasFerro, Ernesto 1908 ----

Central Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia, OrienteSánchez, A.C. 1918 Superintendent

Table 1, continued

Central Soledad, MatanzasDickerson, A.L.Reid, A.J.Rolston, W.A.

191719171916

Ass’t SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendent

Central Tinguero, MatanzasNelson, E.E. 1906 ----

Guantanamo, Sugar Co., Oriente

McConnell, S. 1880-1882 and SugarExperiment Station

GeneralSuperintendent

Central Sagua la Grande, Santa Clara

Díaz, L.G. 1917 ----

Central Santa Isabel, Oriente

Brian, W.L. 1914 ----

Central HormigueroEdgerton, C.E.Tibau, A.C.

19151919

--------

Central Dos RosasSpiller, D.D. 1910 Superintendent

Cuba Cane Sugar Cooperage, Edificio Barrague, HavanaWalsh, Dudley 1892 Gen. Superintendent

Source: Thomas D. Boyd, President, Louisiana State University, “Notice!!,” 6 July1920, TDBJrPP, LSUA.

Table 2Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar

Industry in Puerto Rico, 1904-1924

Name Position or Affiliation YearCentral Aguirre

Carl AltsmanbergerJ. DalfaresJ.C. FalconCharles R. Gaines

Alexis O. SmithF. Vives

LECSMAn.a.LECSMAAssistant SuperintendentAssistant SuperintendentAssistant SuperintendentFactory EngineerChief EngineerLECSMA

191119141909191119121913191419231909

Central Ana MariaA.P. Gaiennie Factory Superintendent 1914

Central ArkadiaW.C. Miller n.a. 1914

Central CambalacheH.E. FridgeJ.W. JoyceJoseph Pearson

Central CamuyL.J.B. Mestier General Superintendent 1912

Central CanovanasHenry DugasEmile FucichH.E. FridgeJohn F. HafemeyerW.D. JundlinJ.E. Mestier

Ulysse RomeAlfred Rousseau

n.a.n.a.n.a.LECSMAn.a.Chief Chemistn.a.n.a.Sugar Boilern.a.n.a.

19161914191519111914191119141916191119131914

Central CarmenBen BremermanH.A. Kreh

LECSMALECSMA

19091911

Central CayeyLouis CopponexA.B. DautriveE.R. MooreMichael Phillips

EngineerChemistFactory Superintendentn.a.

1911191119151914

Table 2, continued

Central ColombiaA.B. DauteriveD.B. RoganLouis Thoman

E.D. Vignes

LECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMAFactory SuperintendentFactory Superintendentn.a.

1909191119091911191519181914

Central CorsicaE.R. Moore Chief Chemist 1916

Central CortadaThomas J. FlanaganJohn F. Hafemeyer

n.a.LECSMA

19101910

Central El EjemploThomas J. Flanagan

A. Gondolfo

LECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMA

1909191119091911

Central FortunaHubert EdsonJ.J. MunsonH.A. NadlerWibray J. Thompson

ManagerEngineerChief EngineerSuperintendent

1912191219141912

Guanica CentralHenry ArnoldC.C. Capdevielle

John DardisI.H. GottliebFrench T. MaxwellW.P. MillerC.S. NadlerB.T. NaseC.N. PressburgCurtis RichardsonDaniel ThompsonC.L. Wagner

n.a.n.a.Chemistn.a.n.a.Chief Engineern.a.SuperintendentChief EngineerAssistant EngineerFactory EngineerEngineern.a.n.a.n.a.

19141913191419151916190419141912191219161909191619221912n.a.

Central JuncosH.J. BjergH.J. NormanJohn J. Shea

n.a.n.a.LECSMA

191419141911

Table 2, continued

Central LafayetteJohn DibbsJohn Fuchs

Adam Krupenbacher

LECSMAFactory Superintendentn.a.Factory SuperintendentLECSMA

19091911191219141909

Central MacheteJ.R. BiggarJ.H. BommemerLouis Copponex

John J. Helmke

Adam KrupenbacherW.C. Mavor

J.A. RomeAlex O. Smith

R.M. StewartCharles Vives

LECSMALECSMAEngineerEngineerLECSMALECSMALECSMAChief EngineerChief EngineerSugar BoilerSuperintendentSuperintendentAssistant SuperintendentSuperintendent

1911191119121913190919101911n.a.192419131916191719231920

Central Mercedita (Ponce)E. GirodJ.D. HelmkeD.A. RichardsonTom Rome

n.a.n.a.n.a.n.a.

1914192419141915.

Central Mercedita (Yabucoa)Geo. B. Grimsal LECSMA 1909

Central Pasto ViejoHenry J. LeJeuneL.J.B. Mestier

LECSMAn.a.

19111911

Central Playa Grande (Vieques)John P. Connolly

Henry DahlingHenry Dickman

LECSMALECSMAFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentFactory SuperintendentLECSMALECSMA

191319141915191619171918192019091909

Central PlazuelaA.M. de AndinoS.S. Eiger

Factory SuperintendentFactory Superintendent

19141913

Table 2, continued

Central ProvidenciaAlex O. Smith

Carl Thoman

Henry O. Thoman

C.B. Thompson

LECSMAChief EngineerLECSMALECSMALECSMALECSMAAssistant Chief Chemist

1911191219091911190919111913

Central San CristobalC.J. BenoistW.J. DeVriesJos. LissardC.L. WagnerJames Wilkinson

n.a.Superintendentn.a.n.a.n.a.

191519131914n.a.1914

Central San VicenteAndrew Martin n.a. 1915

Central UtuadoThomas J. Flanagan n.a. 1914

Unknown CentralA.M. de AndinoL.J. BarthelemyFelix DelauneJ.C. FalconAdam KrupenbacherJames McCafferyJohn MoldenJohn J. SheaFred SmithE.B. StaffordJ.M.E. StowCarl Thoman

Chemistn.a.n.a.Superintendentn.a.n.a.n.a.n.a.LECSMAChemistn.a.Chemist

19131907-161918191219181918191419121911191819161915

LECSMA = Member of the Louisiana Engineers’, Chemists’ and Sugar Makers’Association.

n.a. = information not available.

Source: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years.

Table 3

Louisiana Sugar Men Working in the Sugar Industryin the Dominican Republic, 1912-1921

Name Position or Affiliation YearCentral Ansonia

Lewin, M.Wadenhut, M.

n.a.n.a.

19141913

Central San IsidroGoller, JohnHanaway, S.J.

Sugar Boilern.a.

19121912

Central RomanaGoller, John, Jr.Klock, ArthurKlock, Ernest L.Miller, Stanley L.

n.a.n.a.AdministratorCivil Engineer

1920191519161917

Ingenio AngelinaLear, George M.Lejeune, H.E.

Chief Engineern.a.

19131914

Ingenio ConsueloBoyd, OvertonBurke, ThomasDardis, JohnVollrathYeagerWilliams, W.J.

n.a.Sugar BoilerChief EngineerCentrifugalsCentrifugalsn.a.

191719131913191319131921

Central PorvenirFleetwood, JamesGoller, JohnSearight, F.A.Spiller, T.D.Windgrave

Sugar BoilerAssistant SuperintendentChief ChemistSuperintendentChief Engineer

19131920192019201913

Ingenio Santa FeOng, L. n.a.. 1913

Unknown CentralFlanagan, Thomas J. n.a. 1917

Source: Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, various years.