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Location of records of the R.G. Dunn & Co.



I am researching the life of Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson a prominent American educator during the first third of the 20th century. Central to his story is his business relationship with a man named John J. Hawes, also a citizen of the U.S. who was soldier of fortune in Mexico (1900 to 1935) and an entrepreneur with several interesting investment schemes in Latin America and Europe.

Most of what I know about Mr. Hawes comes from a report I found in the records of the Mexican Consul General written by the American Vice Consul in Mexico City in 1935 briefing the Ambassador on the business background of Mr. Hawes, in which he quotes and paraphrases liberally from R.G. Dunn report on Mr. Hawes. The Ambassador had requested the briefing paper because Vinson and Hawes had arrived in Mexico in late 1934 as partners in a timber venture and by the Spring of 1935 Hawes had filed charges against Vinson and had him imprisoned. In his report on Hawes, the Vice Consul relies heavily on this paper prepared by the R.. G. Dunn & Company and he remarks parenthetically, that the report he cites was available to anyone who had a few dollars to spend on such intelligence. I am extremely interested in finding a copy of that report.

I have discovered that the R.G. Dunn and Company (one of the predecessor companies of the Dun and Bradstreet Corporation) records are reposed at the Baker Library at Harvard University. According to the finding aid on the internet and the archivist in charge of the records that collection contains personal credit reports dating from 1841 to 1890. Since I am interested in a report that was developed sometime in the early 1920’s or the early 1930’s I need to look elsewhere.

If anyone on this list knows of a collection of these investigative reports which apparently were available from the R.G. Dunn and Company other than the ones at the Harvard Library please let me know. It is possible that this kind of material still exists and is kept by the Dunn and Bradstreet Corporation. They also could be in another library or archives somewhere. Any assistance in finding this report would be greatly welcomed.

Jim McLeod