Placido Alonso, 1876-1920.
Letterbooks, 1906-1918
(bulk 1906-1916).
.5 linear ft. (6 vols.)
Series 14 contains copies
of letters written by Placido Alonso. Alonso was the husband of Odelinda
Fanjul Rionda, daughter to Maria Rionda y Polledo and Alonso Fanjul.
In 1906, Alonso was employed as a sales agent in Havana for commodities
imported through Czarnikow, MacDougall's Export Department. In 1907,
he was asked to manage the Central San Vicente, a sugar mill in Matanzas
province near the port of Cardenas.
The letterbooks begin
in early 1906 when Alonso worked as a sales agent for Czarnikow, MacDougall.
Most of the earliest correspondence is to Bernardo Braga Rionda, head of
the Export Department, and is in English. Near the end of volume
1, mention is made of Alonso taking over the management of the San Vicente.
The remaining letterbooks deal primarily with the management of the mill,
including refurbishment of the batey, negotiations with the colonos, and
extending the mill's railroad lines. Most of the San Vicente correspondence
is to Manuel Rionda y Polledo and is in Spanish. The Central San
Vicente was incorporated in the United States as the Cuban Commercial and
Industrial Co. Letters to the corporate office and copies of daily
grinding and cost statements for the mill are found in the letterbooks.
The series is not complete;
volume 2 ends with a note that the last letter is continued in "copiador
3", but that volume was not found. Other volumes may also be missing.
The letterbooks conclude in 1918, but the period after August 1916 is only
briefly covered.
Some of the original
letters for 1913-1914 are in Series 1. Manuel
Rionda's return correspondence will be found in Series
2 and Bernardo Braga's in Series 8.
Series 10 and 65 contain
other materials related to the Central San Vicente.
The Alonso letterbooks
were donated to the Libraries by members of the Braga family in 1993.
Vol. 1 Feb. 16, 1906-Feb. 22, 1907
Vol. 2 June 28, 1907-Oct.11, 1908
Vol. 3 March 7, 1910-March 8, 1911
Vol. 4 May 25, 1911-April 26, 1914
Vol. 5 June 22, 1914-April 13, 1918
Vol. 6 July 22, 1914-August 3, 1916