Finding Aids

American Car and Foundry Company is a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock and railcar parts, founded in 1899. In 1901, the company began leasing the facilities of a railroad rolling stock and shipbuilding manufacturer, the Jackson and Sharp Company. The records include photocopies of a history of the Wilmington plant, incorporation papers, and deeds.

The Reading Company, chartered in 1871 as the Excelsior Enterprise Company, became the holding company for the system of railroads, canals and coal mines assembled by the predecessor Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company between 1833 and 1896. The Reading Company employment and real estate records comprise a largely incomplete and extremely fragmentary synthetic collection of material related to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company and its successors. The collection comprises incomplete employment records largely dating from the first half of the twentieth century, records related to the employee pension program and the Relief Association, a small amount of contracts, and deeds and agreements reflecting the company's process of land acquisition following initial main line construction in the 1830s and through to the early twentieth century.