Claus Spreckels | |
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| Born | (1828-07-09)July 9, 1828 |
| Died | December 26, 1908(1908-12-26) (aged 80) San Francisco,California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Industrialist |
| Known for | Founder ofSpreckels Sugar Company |
| Spouse | Anna Christina Mangels (1830–1910) |
| Children | 13, five lived to adulthood:John Diedrich (1853–1926),Adolph Bernard (1857–1924), Claus August (1858–1946), Emma Claudina (1870–1924), Rudolph (1872–1958) |
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Adolph Claus J. Spreckels[notes 1] (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) was aGerman-born majorindustrialist in bothCalifornia andHawaii during thekingdom andrepublican periods of the islands' history. Spreckels founded or was involved in several enterprises, most notably the company that bears his name,Spreckels Sugar Company.
Spreckels was born inLamstedt, in theKingdom of Hanover, a constituent kingdom of theGerman Confederation. Spreckels was the eldest of six children of the farmer John Diederich Spreckels (1802–1873) and his wife Gesche Baak (1804–1875), a family that had occupied a homestead in Lamstedt for many generations. He grew up in Lamstedt and attended elementary school. After the bad harvests of 1845 and 1846, the resulting inflation and hunger crisis reached its peak in 1847; Spreckels emigrated to the United States in 1848 at the age of 19 to start a new life, with only oneGerman thaler in his pocket, which upon arrival in the US, he exchanged for 75 cents. (Equivalent to about $30 in 2023 dollars.)[1] Spreckels settled inCharleston, South Carolina, working as a grocery clerk, taking over the grocery after a year and a half by buying it on credit from the retiring shop owner.[2][3][4]
In 1852, he married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Christina Mangels (September 4, 1830 inAnkelohe [de], Kingdom of Hanover, German Confederation – February 15, 1910, San Francisco, California), who had immigrated to New York City with her brother three years earlier.[2][3][4] They had 13 children, five of whom lived to maturity: sonsJohn Diedrich (1853–1926),Adolph Bernard (1857–1924), Claus August ("Gus"; 1858–1946), and Rudolph (1872–1958); and daughter, Emma Claudina (1870–1924),[5] who married Watson Ferris Hutton. The remaining children died in childhood, in several cases, within a few months of each other, either fromdiphtheria or from other unspecified pandemic diseases, possiblycholera.[6]
In 1854, Claus and his family left Charleston for New York City, where he operated a grocery with his brother-in-law, Claus Mangels.[2][7][8] In 1855, he was visited by his younger brother Bernhard, who operated a grocery store inSan Francisco and was en route back to their home town of Lamstedt to marry. Bernhard regaled Claus with stories about the city and its booming post-Gold Rush economy. Already disliking New York City and sensing an opportunity, Spreckels soon sold his share of the grocery business there to his brother-in-law and bought out Bernhard's San Francisco grocery, relocating there with his family in 1856.[2][9][10]
After about a year of operating a successful grocery in San Francisco, he again grew restless with the lack of growth opportunity in that line of business. Noting the generally poor quality of San Francisco "quick-brewed beer" of that time, he saw brewing as an industry with strong growth potential. He partnered again with Claus Mangels and with a younger brother, Peter Spreckels, to start abrewery and sold off his grocery business soon after.[9][11][12] Spreckels and his partners opened the Albany Brewery on Everett St near Fourth Street (nowYerba Buena Gardens) in 1857, and soon afterward opened a saloon, the Albany Malt House, across the street. The brewery's first product was acream ale, but later added a German-stylelager and asteam beer, which, by some accounts, introduced steam beer to California.[13][14][15]
Brewing proved a sometimes difficult line of work. Beermaking required constant monitoring for temperature, something that might be ignored when a shift change happened, requiring Spreckels to come in late at night and monitor the process himself. He later stated that he often slept no more than four hours per day for months on end. The brewery and saloon were successful and became the second largest brewery in San Francisco, but never managed to surpass competitor John Wieland's operation for the top position. Spreckels himself never made more than a modest income after splitting the earnings with his partners.[16]
Spreckels saloon was located in the same area asGeorge Gordon's San Francisco and Pacific Sugar Refinery and frequented by some of its workmen. Spreckels had overheard a conversation between these workmen discussing the wastefulness of thesugar refining process at their factory, which allowed large amounts of sugar liquor to overflow and run into the sewers. Spreckels sensed that if the refinery could still turn a profit while wasting so much of its product, then the profit potential in sugar must be enormous.[17] An additional factor was the outbreak of theAmerican Civil War in 1861, which cut off the North from Southern sugar supplies, causing demand to outstrip supply.[18]
In 1863, Spreckels decided to go into the sugar refining business, leaving management of the brewery in the hands of his partners. In order to familiarize himself with the process of sugar refining, he relocated to New York City (then the center of the American sugar industry) for several months, taking an entry-level night shift job at theCharles W. Durant sugar refinery and learning all aspects of the process. During the day, he toured other sugar refineries, asking detailed questions about their process. Spreckels had his eldest son John accompany him on this extended trip and included him on factory tours so that he would learn the business as well. While in New York City, Spreckels took advantage of the opportunity to purchase a full set of sugar refining equipment from the recently bankrupted United States Refinery, having it shipped aroundCape Horn to San Francisco.[9][11][19]
In 1864, Spreckels opened the Bay Sugar Refining Company, the first of a series of sugar refining enterprises, establishing a factory at Union and Battery Streets, near the San Francisco waterfront. Claus Spreckels would again partner with Claus Mangels and Peter Spreckels, but also brought in financers Hermann Meese and Louis Meyer as partners. At the same time, he finally sold off his remaining shares of the Albany Brewery, leaving that business in the hands of Mangels and Peter Spreckels. The new business expanded rapidly, and usingprice war tactics, quickly overtook the San Francisco and Pacific company for market share of sugar in California.[11][20]
His next sugar factory, the California Sugar Refinery, was built in 1867 and located at Eighth and Brannan Streets.[21] By the late 1870s, the Brannan Street facilities were running at capacity, so Spreckels chose a site inPotrero Point to open a larger sugar refinery with water access.[citation needed] Spreckels would come to dominate thesugar trade on the West Coast.
Spreckels used some of his wealth to purchase, beginning in 1872, the former Mexican land grantRancho Aptos, a large tract of ranch and timber land inAptos, California.[22] He built a large resort hotel, and not far away, an extensive ranch complex.[23] Spreckels was one of the original investors in theSanta Cruz Railroad, which began operation in 1875 and passed through his land on its run betweenSanta Cruz andWatsonville.[24][25] On the Aptos ranch, Spreckels began to experiment with growingsugar beets. He induced others in the area to plant sugar beets, as well, and built the Soquel BeetRoot Sugar Company, a small refinery in nearbySoquel in 1874, where it operated for five years.[26][27]
Spreckels' interest in Hawaii'ssugar industry began in 1876. Prior to that time, Spreckels had opposed theReciprocity Treaty of 1875, which increased the Kingdom of Hawaii's access to the American sugar market, because he feared that the low tariffs on Hawaiian sugar would hurt his business. However, Spreckels eventually decided to establish his own plantations in Hawaii and traveled there one year later.[28]
In 1878, Spreckels foundedSpreckelsville, a company town along the northern shore ofMaui. To do so, he purchased and leased 40,000 acres (160 km2) of land. That same year, Spreckelsincorporated the Hawaiian Commercial Company withHermann Schussler, a San Francisco area engineer best known for overseeing construction of theCrystal Springs Reservoir. In 1882, the company was reincorporated as the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S).[29] By 1892, Spreckelsville was the largestsugarcaneplantation in the world[28] and employed thousands of immigrant farm laborers from Japan,[30] Korea,[31] China,[32] and other countries.
Spreckels became friends withWalter M. Gibson, adviser to KingKalākaua. Together, they made arrangements where Spreckels would lend the king money and in return, Gibson and he would increase the Spreckels' land holdings and water rights.[citation needed] However, Spreckels fell out of Kalākaua's favor in 1886. Both the king and Gibson were in debt to Spreckels due to gambling and tired of his demands. Kalākaua was able to secure a loan from a London creditor and paid off his debt to Spreckels, freeing him of the latter's influence.[29][33][34]
He purchased thePacific Commercial Advertiser in Hawaii in 1880 and became a publisher. This paper later became known as theHonolulu Advertiser, and prior to its demise in 2010, became one of the largest newspapers in circulation in the United States. Spreckels' conservative, pro-monarchy slant caused him to fall from favor in the business community, and he eventually sold the newspaper.
Claus Spreckels also lent his assistance toWilliam Matson when he first foundedMatson Navigation Company. Matson had been captain of a vessel, engaged chiefly in carrying coal to the Spreckels sugar refinery. Spreckels financed many of Matson's new ships, including Matson's first ship, calledEmma Claudina and named for Spreckels' daughter.[35]
In 1893, following a bitter lawsuit that pitted him against his two youngest sons, Gus and Rudolph, as well as theoverthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which he opposed, Claus Spreckels handed off his Hawaii properties and businesses to his business partnerWilliam G. Irwin and his two eldest sons, John and Adolph, with the intention of focusing his resources on his beet sugar business in California.[36][37] Viewed as an opponent of the newly-establishedProvisional Government of Hawaii, on July 9, 1893, Spreckels found a death threat graffitied on his house and went into self-exile from Hawaii on July 19.[38][39] He left on theSS Australia, vowing to "return to see grass growing in the streets of Honolulu." Spreckels returned only once to Hawaii, in 1905.[40][41]
Infighting between his sons and their waning interests in their Hawaiian businesses led to the dissolution of the Spreckels family businesses over the following decades and their takeover by Hawaii's emergingBig Five sugar companies. Following a brief takeover by Gus and Rudolph, the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company and Spreckelsville were taken over byAlexander & Baldwin in 1898, and the remaining Irwin and Spreckels businesses merged intoC. Brewer & Co. in 1909.[34][37]
Sensing that his influence in Hawaii was slipping, Spreckels renewed his interest in sugar beet cultivation in California. In 1888, Spreckels established the Western Beet Sugar Company in Watsonville, which was at that time the largest beet sugar factory in the U.S.[42][43] By 1890, his main growing operations had shifted to theSalinas Valley, so he built the 42-milenarrow-gauge Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad to ship his sugar beets from the fields nearSalinas to Watsonville.[44]
In 1899, Spreckels opened an even larger factory closer to the main sugar-beet fields. He named the new enterprise Spreckels Sugar Company.Spreckels, California, a plannedcompany town, was built nearby, with the first houses designed by noted architectW.H. Weeks, who also designed the factory. Unlike typical company towns, workers were not required to live there and businesses were independently owned rather thancompany stores.[45][46][47]
In the 1890s, Spreckels helped found the national sugar trust and renamed his San Francisco property the Western Sugar Refinery, and continued to increase his control over the Hawaiian sugar trade. This control over the industry was irksome to Hawaiian planters not directly affiliated with Spreckels and his associates. At the end of the 1890s, they attempted to break free. In 1905, the planters established a cooperative refinery inCrockett, California, theCalifornia and Hawaiian Sugar Company (C&H). The Spreckels dominance in sugar was broken, but the Western Sugar Refinery continued operation in San Francisco until 1951.[citation needed]
Spreckels was the president of theSan Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad, which was founded in 1895 and sold to theSanta Fe Railway in 1900. The railroad built a line that competed with theSouthern Pacific through theSan Joaquin Valley betweenRichmond andBakersfield. The railroad was welcome competition for shippers who were strangled by Southern Pacific's monopoly on shipping rates in the valley.[48] Today, this route isBNSF's main route toNorthern California.
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Spreckels had an often-contentious relationship with other powerful business figures and interests, both in the United States and in theKingdom of Hawai'i. This was reflected in frequent negative publicity for Spreckels, particularly in the oftenyellow press that characterized much of American journalism of that era.[49][50] One such rivalry would grow into a family enmity between Claus Spreckels and his sons andCharles andM. H. de Young, owners of theSan Francisco Chronicle, culminating in the attempted assassination of M. H. de Young byAdolph B. Spreckels in 1884.[51][52][53] Allegations by theChronicle and other critics included the claim that he practiced slavery on his Hawaiian plantations, that he acted as apimp for KingKalākaua, and that he had defrauded stockholders in his company.[51]
Like other owners ofsugar plantations in Hawaii prior to American annexation, Spreckels employed laborers on thecontract labor system,[28][29] a system having some features ofindentured servitude, in which an immigrant laborer contracted to work for a single employer for a set period (typically 3–5 years) for a low wage as repayment for the cost of passage to Hawaii.[54] Spreckels was a strong advocate for continuation of this system, arguing that sugar could not be produced economically without a reliable supply of cheap labor.[28][29] This led him to oppose theannexation of Hawaii by the United States, something that was supported by many powerful Americans in Hawaii, as the use of contract labor was illegal in the United States under the 1885Alien Contract Labor Law and other laws.[29][55]
In the 1880s, theChronicle began running articles alleging that the laborers on Spreckels plantations were effectively enslaved, that his plantations engaged in unacceptable labor practices, and that the living conditions of the laborers were inhumane, with some of this coverage getting attention in the larger national press.[50][56] The majority of San Francisco newspapers of the era, however, did not endorse theChronicle's reporting on the issue, claiming that the labor conditions on Spreckels plantations were acceptable and, in fact, much better than those onsugar plantations in the Caribbean, a position later supported by independent investigations by the Portuguese and Norwegian governments.[56]
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Negative publicity about Spreckels Hawaiian operations continued to follow him even after the divestment of his Hawaiian operations in 1893. In 1900, an incident took place in which 114Puerto Rican migrant laborers weretransported to Hawaii under coercive and inhumane conditions. News of the plight of these laborers as they were being transported to California for shipment to Hawaii became acause célèbre in the American press, particularly in San Francisco. The laborers were recruited andtrafficked by labor agents who, according to most accounts, were hired by theHawaiian Sugar Planters' Association,[57][58][59][60][61][62] though some stories linked the agents to Claus Spreckels.[63][64][65][66]John D. Spreckels issued a statement via his newspaper, theSan Francisco Call, claiming that neither he nor Claus Spreckels had anything to do with the recruitment of these laborers.[64]
Spreckels died on December 26, 1908, in San Francisco, and was interred in the Spreckels Mausoleum atCypress Lawn Memorial Park inColma. His second son, Adolph, and his daughter-in-law,Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, were later interred there after their deaths.[67][68]
On Claus Spreckels's death, his son Adolph assumed the management ofSpreckels Sugar Company. The company remained under control of Claus Spreckels descendants until a 1949 buyout by Charles Edouard de Bretteville, a relative of Adolph's wife,Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. The de Bretteville family sold their interest in 1963 and it passed out of the family entirely. As of 2025, Spreckels Sugar Company is still in business, owned by the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative.[69] The company is headquartered inBrawley, California in theImperial Valley and operates abeet sugar factory there. It currently sells granulated sugar in bulk to the food and beverage industry, with a secondary business inbeet molasses andbeet pulp that is sold forcommercial yeast manufacture and for animal feed.[70][71]
The original Spreckels Sugar Factory in theSalinas Valley continued to operate after Spreckels death. The town ofSpreckels, California and the sugar factory were important in the early life of novelistJohn Steinbeck, and several scenes from his novels take place there. The factory continued to operate until 1982. Although it was considered to be a historically important structure, it was demolished in 1992 after being damaged beyond repair in the1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The town still stands and is considered one of the best-preserved examples of a former company town in California.[45][47]
The Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) continued operation as a division of Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) for over a century after Spreckels left the company. In 1902, HC&S closed theSpreckelsville mill and moved its main operations toPuʻunene. Later in the century, A&B would sell of the valuable coastal land on which Spreckelsville was situated for real estate development and the unincorporated community of Spreckelsville still exists as a community. The original California HC&S corporation incorporated by Spreckels and Schussler in 1878 was formally dissolved and then reincorporated in Hawaii in 1926. The company shut down operations entirely in 2016, by which time it had been the last remaining sugar producer in Hawaii.[citation needed]
In 1899, Spreckels gave the city of San Francisco a classical-style outdoor music structure (known as "the bandshell") to frame one end of theMusic Concourse inGolden Gate Park. The official name of the structure is theSpreckels Temple of Music.
A number of streets in Aptos, California, are named either for Claus Spreckels or for parts of his once-extensive estate. In addition to Spreckels Drive and Claus Lane, Polo Drive runs along one side of what was once Spreckels' polo field, now a Santa Cruz County park named Polo Grounds Park.[72] A shopping center called Deer Park Shopping Center sits at the edge of a formerly wooded Spreckels-owned area used by hotel guests and visitors.[73]
Other naming tributes to the Spreckels family include:
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