Steaming up!: The Autobiography of Samuel M. Vauclain
(Originally published in 1930, this fascinating autobiogra...)
Originally published in 1930, this fascinating autobiography of Samuel Vauclain is also a portrait of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. The book describes his rise from roundhouse mechanic to head of the company, the development of different engines such as the Mallets and the Mikados, and the growth of Baldwin into the largest manufacturer of steam engines in the world. Illustrated throughout with black and white photos. 320 pages.
Samuel M. Vauclain was an American locomotive manufacturer and inventor.
Background
Samuel M. Vauclain was born on May 18, 1856, in Port Richmond, Pennsylvania. He was the fifth son and ninth of ten children of Andrew Constant and Mary Ann (Campbell) Vauclain. The Vauclain family was of French origin, Samuel's grandfather, Jacques Leonard Vauclain, having come to Philadelphia about 1800 from the island of Martinique, where members of the family had been coffee planters for several generations.
His mother was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Young Vauclain was born and reared in an atmosphere of railroad mechanics. His father had helped Matthias Baldwin build his first locomotive, "Old Ironsides. " When Samuel was a baby the family moved to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where the father was foreman of the Pennsylvania Railroad shops.
Education
Vauclain received honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Career
At the age of sixteen, the boy left school to become an apprentice-helper in the shop at a wage of fifty cents a day, and in five years, he had become an assistant foreman. So well did he learn the mechanics of locomotives that in 1882 the railroad company sent him to the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia to inspect an order of new locomotives being built there. The job consumed a year's time, and at its completion Vauclain was hired by the Baldwin company as foreman of its Seventeenth Street shops, the beginning of an association that was to last for fifty-seven years. Vauclain's technical ability brought him quick advancement.
In 1886, he was made general superintendent of the entire Baldwin plant in Philadelphia, and three years later he completed the first of his important locomotive designs. This was a four-cylinder compound locomotive in which the expanding steam, by passing through both a high-pressure and a low-pressure cylinder, resulted in an even exhaust, thus developing greater use from each pound of steam generated, with corresponding economies in fuel and water. It was widely adopted on American railroads. In 1902, Vauclain developed the "balanced compound, " in which there were two pistons on the same side opposing each other. This obviated the "hammer blow, " destructive to tracks.
In 1896, he introduced a rack-and-rail type of locomotive for mountain climbing. In 1902, he made his first engine to burn lignite fuel for use in the Southwest. In 1905 he designed a smoke-box super-heater to keep the steam hot and dry so that it would not condense in the cylinders and thus have to be blown off, with attendant waste in power. For wheel construction he devised a method of drop-forging the wrought iron centers by means of a special hammer with steel heads. When heavier locomotives were being introduced, Vauclain brought out the largest of that day, the "Decapod, " with five pairs of driving wheels, a 2-10-0 type weighing 195, 000 pounds. Meanwhile, in 1896, Vauclain had been taken in as a partner in the firm of Burnham, Williams & Company, the proprietors of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. When the partnership was replaced by a corporation in 1909, he served at first as general superintendent, becoming vice-president in 1911, president in 1919, and chairman of the board in 1929.
With the outbreak of the war he visited Europe and brought back orders from the Russian, French, and British governments. When the United States entered the war, Vauclain, always a hard worker, redoubled his efforts. As chairman of the munitions committee of the War Industries Board he helped to mobilize American production. In his own plant he built locomotives for the American Expeditionary Forces and added a munitions factory that turned out a million rifles in its first twelve months. When railway carriages were needed to mount 14-inch naval guns for use in Europe, Vauclain completed them in record time.
In the postwar years Vauclain strongly advocated American aid in the rehabilitation of Europe. Devoting more and more of his time to sales work, he established Baldwin offices in twelve foreign countries and personally negotiated sales (often imaginatively financed) to several foreign governments. He continued to supervise the work of his company until shortly before his death.
Vauclain died of a heart attack at his home in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and was buried in the family plot in the churchyard of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Redeemer at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Achievements
For his war services Vauclain received the Distinguished Service Medal and decorations from several European governments. For his locomotive inventions Vauclain was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal and the John Scott Medal of the City of Philadelphia, both in 1891.
He was an active member of the Institute and of the American Philosophical Society.
A Republican in politics, Vauclain was a delegate to his party's national convention in 1920, where for a time he was pushed as his state's "favorite son" for the presidential nomination.
Membership
a member of the American Philosophical Society
Personality
By the time of the first World War he was one of the world's leading authorities on locomotive design and was frequently called in by railroad officials to advise on what engines they should buy. His technical knowledge, combined with his vigorous personality, also made him an excellent salesman. A big man, lanky but weighing more than 200 pounds, his head always held high, Vauclain was a striking figure in his habitual dark clothes and black string tie.
He had abounding faith in himself, his business, and his country's future. A strong individualist, he had no use for labor unions and fought any attempt to organize his employees, making use of lockouts on several occasions and at one point firing some 2, 500 "agitators. " But though he ran his company autocratically, he has been described as a "benevolent despot, " who was always accessible to his men as individuals.
Connections
On April 17, 1879, Vauclain married Annie Kearney, daughter of an Altoona merchant. They had six children: Samuel Matthews, Mary, Jacques Leonard, Anne, Charles Parry, and Constance Marshall.
