Budd Company legal documents

2557

Finding aid prepared by Christopher T. Baer in 2014..

Last updated on January 27, 2014.

Manuscripts and Archives Department

January 24, 2014

 Budd Company legal documents

Table of Contents

Summary Information....................................................................................................................................3

Biography/History..........................................................................................................................................3

Scope and Contents....................................................................................................................................... 4

Administrative Information........................................................................................................................... 5

Related Materials........................................................................................................................................... 5

Collection Inventory...................................................................................................................................... 6
Agreements...............................................................................................................................................6

Ambi-Budd Presswerk G.m.b.H..............................................................................................................6

Lawsuits................................................................................................................................................... 7

Leases....................................................................................................................................................... 7

Pressed Steel Company of Great Britain Limited...................................................................................9

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 Budd Company legal documents

Summary Information

Repository Hagley Museum and Library: Manuscripts and Archives Department

Budd Company

Title Budd Company legal documents

Call number 2557

Date 1926-1965

Extent 1.25 linear feet

Language English

Language of Materials Ambi-Budd Presswerk documents are in German with English

translations.

Abstract The collection consists of a small group of legal documents of the Budd
Company and its related firms preserved by a former employee. Also
included are the papers of Budd Company's British and German affiliates,
property leases, and agreements.

Biography/History

Edward Gowen Budd, Sr. (1870-1946) founded the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company in
Philadelphia on July 22, 1912 for the purpose of making pressed-steel auto parts. Its main plant was
located on Hunting Park Avenue in North Philadelphia. Budd also created two joint ventures in 1926
for the purpose of marketing its technology and products to European car makers, The Pressed Steel
Company of Great Britain Limited and Ambi-Budd Presswerk G.m.b.H. in Germany. A third company,

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 Budd Company legal documents

Budd International Corporation (1930-1943) held the Budd interest in these two companies and handled
all foreign licensing. Between 1932 and 1982, Budd was also a major manufacturer of railroad passenger
cars and subway cars using stainless steel and its "Shotweld" process. During World War II, it built a
number of large stainless-steel cargo planes at a government-funded plant on Red Lion Road in Northeast
Philadelphia. Red Lion was converted to railroad car manufacture after the war.
The Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company and its subsidiary Budd Wheel Company merged to form
the Budd Company on June 11, 1946. After the retirement of Edward G. Budd, Jr., his successor move the
company headquarters from Philadelphia to Troy, Michigan, to be closer to the auto makers. It had also
moved into making plastic auto parts, as the manufacturers reduced vehicle weight for greater efficiency.
In April 1978, Budd became a subsidiary of the German steelmaker Thyssen AG. Thyssen restructured
the auto-parts side of the business and sold the poorly-performing railcar business to Bombardier, Inc. of
Canada in 1987. The Red Lion site was redeveloped in the 1990s, and Budd ended its long presence in
Philadelphia by closing the Hunting Park Avenue plant in 2002.

Scope and Contents

This collection of Budd Company documents was acquired from the family of a former employee as an
adjunct to a collection of photographs. The bulk of the collection consists of leases, which permit tracking
the shifting locations of the company's sales offices, the location of its shipping pier on the Delaware
River, and a few details of the Hunting Park plant. Agreements include one with the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company for road-testing its first Rail Diesel Car (RDC) demonstrator in 1949, with the
Reading Company for switching its plants, and with the State of New Jersey for furnishing blanks to be
made into license plates by inmates of the state prison. Very incomplete papers from a lawsuit by a small
stockholder against the company and its directors charge malfeasance in the issuing of shares and options
to the directors during the 1946 reorganization and public stock offering.
The most interesting part of the collection concerns its German joint venture Ambi-Budd Presswerk
G.m.b.H. It addition to the firms organization papers and original contracts, there is a file, tantalizingly
incomplete, describing negotiations to increase the capital of the firm and to exercise a purchase option
on its plant site, which was on leased land, in the year before World War II began. Depression-wracked
Budd was leery of pumping more capital, especially British hard currency, into Germany, while the
German partners were equally determined to get it by any means. To complicate matters, the owner of the
plant site, a Frau Mueller, was Jewish and desperate to get out of Germany with a minimum of money to
live on, while the German partners were clearly eager to grab Jewish property for a song before further
crackdowns made even such deals illegal. It is also not clear if Budd realized the plant was being used for
German military production, and interesting to note that both sides were projecting installment payments
running from 1942 to 1946. Unfortunately, the files tell nothing of the ultimate fate of Frau Mueller,
but the Nazi government eventually expropriated Budd's interest. However, Paul Pleiss, a party in the
negotiations, did manage to smuggle the design secrets of the Ambi-built fuel can used by the panzers out
of Germany later in 1939.

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 Budd Company legal documents

Administrative Information

Manuscripts and Archives Department

January 24, 2014

Finding aid prepared by Christopher T. Baer in 2014..

Related Materials

Related Material
Budd Company historical files (Accession 2411), Manuscripts and Archives Department, Hagley
Museum and Library.

Separated Material
Publications were transferred to the Published Collections Department and can be found in Hagley's
online catalog. Contact the Published Collections Department for details.
Photographic prints and negatives were transferred to the Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives
Department.

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 Budd Company legal documents

I.. Agreements

Collection Inventory

I.. Agreements.

Box Folder

Armored car service, 1952-1958. 1 1

Check cashing, 1954-1957. 1 2

Eastern Weighing and Inspection Bureau, 1947. 1 3

Erie Forge Company, 1951. 1 4

H.L. Yoh Company, Inc., 1948. 1 5

Hambiln & Russell, Inc./Lyndhurst Steel Corporation, 1953-1954. 1 6

Lewis & Gilman - Public relations, 1942. 1 7

New Jersey State Prison - License plate blanks, 1948. 1 8

Pennsylvania Railroad Company - Testing RDC, 1949. 1 9

Reading Company, 1939-1956. 1 10

Richard S. Doyle - Tax counsel, 1952. 1 11

II.. Ambi-Budd Presswerk G.m.b.H.

Box Folder

Bylaws, 1926. 1 12

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 Budd Company legal documents

III.. Lawsuits

Contracts, 1926-1928. 1 13

Land purchase options / Mueller settlement, 1938-1939. 1 14

Organization documents, 1926-. 1 15

III.. Lawsuits.

Box Folder

Julius Karlsberg vs. Budd Company, 1949-1953. 1 16

IV.. Leases.

Box Folder

Clinton, Mich., 1964-1965. 1 17

Detroit, Mich., 1952-1953. 1 18

Downingtown Iron Works, Inc., 1961-1964. 1 19

Erie Avenue, Philadelphia, 1940. 1 20

Germantown Fireproof Storage Company - Records storage, 1944-1958. 1 21

Giles & Ransome, Inc. - Fox & Juniata Streets, 1950-1959. 2 1

Hunting Park Plant, 1939-1960. 2 2

Hunting Park Plant - Electric Realty Corp., 1936-1939. 2 3

Hunting Park Plant - Office building at Wissahickon Avenue, 1942-1948. 2 4

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 Budd Company legal documents

IV.. Leases

John Maneely warehouse, 1940-1949. 1 5

Morris, Wheeler & Co., Inc. property, 1936-1941. 2 6

Northern Metal Company, 1942-1947. 2 7

Offices - Alexandria, Va., 1963. 2 8

Offices - Chicago, 1937-1962. 2 9

Offices - Detroit, 1939-1951. 2 10

Offices - Lexington, Mass., 1961-1963. 1 11

Offices - Los Angeles, 1940-1960. 2 12

Offices - New York City - Irving Trust Building, 1943-1946. 2 13

Offices - New York City - Miscellaneous, 1936-1941. 2 14

Offices - New York City - New York Central Building, 1941-1959. 3 1

Offices - New York City - Rockefeller Center, 1947-1952. 3 2

Offices - Paris, 1941-1942. 3 3

Offices - Pittsburgh, 1937. 3 4

Offices - Polychem Division, 1962-1963. 3 5

Offices - St. Louis, 1946-1951. 3 6

Offices - San Francisco, 1940-1964. 3 7

Offices - Seattle, 1944. 3 8

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 Budd Company legal documents

V.. Pressed Steel Company of Great Britain Limited

Offices - Washington, D.C., 1940-1947. 3 9

Red Lion Plant, 1960. 3 10

Royersford, Pa. plant, 1959-1960. 3 11

17th Street & Glenwood Avenue, 1943-1946. 3 12

22nd Street & Sedgley Avenue, 1943. 3 13

V.. Pressed Steel Company of Great Britain Limited.

Box Folder

Organization documents, 1926. 3 14

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