Thomas Dolan

Background

Thomas Dolan was born on October 27, 1834 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, of obscure ancestry.

Education

Dolan's formal schooling was limited to a few years in the public schools.

Career

Thomas's career in business beginning when he became salesman in a store at the age of fifteen. Seven years later his connection with the wholesale knit-goods business began.

During the industrial depression of the early Civil War period he successfully reorganized a factory under the firm name of the Keystone Knitting Mills, and maneuvered himself into a position of virtual monopoly in his particular branch of the industry.

His business acumen found expression in adaptations not only to war-time conditions but to changes of fashion during the following decades.

To meet successive shifts in the demand for fabrics, he reorganized his business for the manufacture, in turn, of knit goods, worsted shawls, and worsted coating goods.

His initiative found expression more significantly in important innovations in technology, chiefly the use of electric power in factories.

In 1905 the question was reopened. Should the city exercise its option, or continue the existing lease, or negotiate with the company for a new lease? The third course was chosen.

The company’s operation of the system had been profitable alike to the company and to the city.

But on April 20 the Select Council adopted resolutions instructing its finance committee to propose a new lease by which the city would surrender annual payments under the existing lease in return for a cash consideration.

The alleged motive was the avoiding of increased taxes and borrowings for needed public improvements.

It was widely believed that the political organization in control of the city was proposing to mortgage or “rob” the city’s future for the sake of ready money for corrupt uses.

City officials nevertheless disregarded the storm signals and proceeded to open negotiations for a new lease.

As finally adopted in Council, the proposed new lease was to expire in 1980 instead of 1927, and the payments to the city were to amount to $25, 000, 000.

These actions were accompanied by citywide organized remonstrances and by threats of violence which went so far as the wearing of buttons bearing a picture of a gallows and the inscription, “No gas steal. The last resort. We mean it”.

Dolan wrote a letter stating that in view of evidences of opposition his company no longer desired and would not accept the proposed new lease. His other business connections were so extensive as to make him a pioneer in the development of modern interlocking directorates.

He was actively connected with many industrial and commercial associations, serving, for instance, as president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

In 1888 he was organizer and chairman of an advisory committee of the Republican National Committee.

He was particularly prominent as an advocate of protective tariffs.

Achievements

• Dolan served as the president of the United Gas Improvement Company and expanded his activities in the fields of public utilities until his interests extended over a large part of the country. He was one of the organizers and the first president of the Manufacturers’ Club of Philadelphia and the Republican National Committee.

Politics

Politically, he was prominent in raising funds for a number of presidential campaigns and in bringing personal and group influence to bear on public policies.

Personality

Dolan was often hard and ruthless, and amazing in his display of energy, but he was hardly more than typical of his generation.

He was profoundly influenced by the rapid industrial expansion of the North after the Civil War, and by the public and private demoralization of that era.

Characteristically, his relations with other business men and with public officials can hardly be described as urbane or even subtle.