Finding aid for the Franklin S. Terry Papers

Biography of Franklin S. Terry

Franklin S. Terry (1862-1926) was a business executive in the incandescent lamp industry with broad philanthropic interests related to World War I relief. Born in Ansonia, Connecticut, Terry was educated at Phillips Academy. He left Ansonia for Chicago in 1889 where he began the Sunbeam Incandescent Lamp Company. In 1901, he came to Cleveland where he and Burton G. Tremaine of the Fostoria (Ohio) Incandescent Lamp Company established the National Electric Lamp Association (renamed NELA in 1906).

Ostensibly established as a consortium of small lamp manufacturers which allowed for effective competition with industry giants, General Electric and Westinghouse, NELA was, in fact, secretly and largely (75%) financed by General Electric. When General Electric's interest was discovered during a federal anti-trust suit in 1911, it wholly absorbed NELA which became GE's National Quality Lamp Works Division.

Terry remained with the company throughout this period serving initially as a vice president as NELA, later (after 1911) as manager of the former NELA operations, and finally as a vice president of General Electric. It was under Terry's leadership that General Electric built and opened, in 1913, its industrial research and production facility, NELA Park, in suburban East Cleveland. Nela was one of the first campus-like research and production facilities in the United States.

With the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, Terry became deeply interested in the conflict and eventually involved in efforts to assist the soldiers and orphans of the continental allied powers. To this end he established the Nela Fund to assist the families of French soldiers from the "business and professional classes." Terry and other subscribers to the Nela Fund supported and entered into correspondence with orphans (adoptees) and, at times, soldiers (Godsons).

A trip to Europe in 1919 to attend to Nela Fund matters piqued Terry's interest in the historical significance of the war and resulted in his acquisition of a vast body of posters, publications, and artifacts. These items were subsequently donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society by his widow.

Following the war, Terry continued his work with General Electric and maintained his correspondence with the families he had supported. One year after leaving General Electric, he died at the age of 64 in his summer home in North Carolina.

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for NELA Park

Scope and Content

The Franklin S. Terry Papers, 1875-1926, consist of correspondence, reports, ledger pages, clippings, publications, postcards, and photographs relating to Terry's personal life, business activities and, principally, his interest in and activities relating to World War I.

The Terry collection has value and importance for a number of areas of inquiry. Series I, Personal Chronological Files, contain materials relating to Terry's youth and schooling in Connecticut, to a series of international trips he took to Germany, Egypt, Italy and the Mediteranean in the early 1900s, and to his great interest in theater, music and opera. Of special interest in this series is material relating to Terry's involvement in amateur publishing in the 1870s and to the social life and customs of relatively well-to-do adolescents during the 1870s and 1880s.

Series II: Vacation Files, contains information about Terry's summer home in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and to outings, skits and other entertainments undertaken by a group of National Electric Lamp Association managers at a private resort, "Association Island."

The general history of World War I is detailed in Series III which consists of a series of carefully mounted publications and clippings (largely from the New York Times) relating to the history and aftermath of that conflict.

Series IV: Nela Fund Files, provides valuable insight into the relationship of Americans, largely from the business and affluent classes, with the allied powers during World War I. The Nela Fund itself represented an effort to extend aid to orphans and families from the business and professional classes of France. Correspondence to and from these families, along with photographs and postcards, form a major segment of the series and provide extraordinary insight into the effects of the war on this portion of the French (and to a limited extent, Belgian and Italian) population. In some instances the materials from a particular family date from 1916 to the mid-1920s. The Nela Fund files also contain correspondence with agencies that administered Nela aid or assisted in its work. These included the American Ouvroir Fund (of Paris and of New York), the Committee of Hope, Children of the Frontier, the American Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association of Cleveland, and the American Relief Clearing House. Other portions of the series detail the administrative work of the Fund and provide information about American donors.

Series V: Terry Miscellaneous Files, relates largely to Terry's business interests and financial holdings It provides information concerning the United States' anti-trust action against General Electric in 1911, the Cities Service Company, and the Peerless Motor Car Company of Cleveland, of which Terry served as a director. Much of the Peerless material relates to Terry's ownership and maintenance of a 1921 Model 56 Peerless automobile.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult PG 83 Franklin S. Terry Album.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4091 Franklin S. Terry Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Mrs. Franklin S. Terry, 1929

Processing Information

Processed by John J. Grabowski in 1990

Detailed Description of The Collection