Associated Gas and Electric System
- Title:
- Associated Gas and Electric System
- Alternate Title:
- Associated Gas and Electric System
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Associated Gas and Electric System
- Other Creators:
- The Whiting-Graham Company Inc., printers.
- Date:
- 1932
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2553.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2553_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1920 - 1939
- Subject:
- Advertising & Promotion
Money & Finance - Measurement:
- 50 x 39 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- The collection includes two rather ordinary-looking maps of the properties of the Associated Gas and Electric System, ID #5525 (1929) and ID #5526 (1932). Each of them shows the locations of the company's gas and electric plants and other services and operations, along with relevant transmission facilities, across the eastern United States and Canada, from Louisiana and Missouri to Nova Scotia to South Carolina and Florida, with an inset map of its operations in the Philippine Islands. These two maps were part of the promotional activity behind one of the largest and most consequential frauds of the 1920s, engineered by an entrepreneur named Howard C. Hopson.
Hopson acquired a small New York utility system in 1922. Throughout the 1920s, he used securities issued by the company to acquire other utility systems, consolidated them with Associated, and used the larger assets and earnings of Associated to issue more securities and purchase more utilities. Maps such as these two gave the impression that the company had the scope and strength needed to attract investors. By the end of the decade, the holding company was serving over 1.7 million customers in 6,000 communities; it had a billion dollars of assets and annual gross revenues of $133 million. Ingham 1983, 622. The stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Depression devastated the company's value, and investors in its stock and bonds suffered heavy losses.
The collapse of Associated and other public utility holding companies led to federal investigations in the Roosevelt administration by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Congress. In the summer of 1935, Hopson was the subject of intensive adverse publicity resulting from his lengthy and eventually unsuccessful (and somewhat farcical) effort to avoid testifying before Congress on the efforts of the "power lobby" to derail congressional action against holding companies. New York Times, August 13, 1935, p.1.
The company finally went into bankruptcy in early 1940, and in May of that year, Hopson and three others were indicted on numerous charges of fraud related to Associated. Ibid., May 10, 1940, p.12. On December 31, 1940, Hopson was convicted on 17 counts of defrauding the company's investors and consumers of some $20 million, and he was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Ibid., January 1, 1941, pp. 1, 21; January 10, 1941, p. 38. Upon his death, the New York Times reported that "His financial manipulations were largely responsible for the enactment of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act with its 'death sentence,' [for such companies] and for other New Deal legislation regulating utilities and the stock market operations." December 23, 1949, p.21.
For other maps in the collection related to fraudulent or suspicious financial transactions, Search > fraud.
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.