Subseries 10c

Series 10 consists of three, alphabetically arranged, subject files included here as subseries 10a-10c.

Series 10 contains incoming and outgoing correspondence, reports, comparative data on sugar production and sales, published materials, internal memoranda, blueprints, maps, and other records.

Subseries 10a spans the years 1911 through 1920. It documents the creation of the Manati Sugar Company and the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation, Manuel Rionda's involvement in international regulation of sugar supplies during World War I, the collapse of the sugar market in 1920, and Czarnikow-Rionda's participation in the Sugar Finance Committee.

Subseries 10b was found in a transfile marked "files kept by Mrs. Forbes." Subseries 10b consists primarily of carbon copies of outgoing correspondence from 1920 through 1922. A more complete record of Manuel Rionda's letters for this time period can be found in Series 2, Series 3, and Series 4.

The largest part of Series 10 is contained in Subseries 10c. This subject file replaced and unified other filing systems used by Rionda. Consequently, it provides extensive coverage on all of Rionda's diverse concerns. Subseries 10c begins in 1921 and continues until Rionda's death in September, 1943. The time period includes the Great Depression, the Cuban Revolution of 1933, and the first years of World War II. The files on each of the Rionda sugar companies provide detailed information on the operations of the plantations. There is abundant documentation on the political and social forces that affected sugar production and marketing. Folders marked "Sugar Finance Committee, Documents, Lawsuit 1935-1936" were originally part of documentary evidence related to a suit filed by the Cuban government against members of Czarnikow-Rionda who served on the Sugar Finance Committee. Also contained in this subseries are materials created by the public relations firm of Ivy Lee to combat higher sugar tariffs in the 1920s.

Included among the principal correspondents in Series 10 are Walter E. Ogilvie, the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell (which owned stock in many of the Rionda sugar companies), Albert and Frederick Strauss of J. and W. Seligman, Robert B. Hawley, Jose Miguel Tarafa, Miguel Arango, Laureano Falla Gutierrez, and Thomas L. Chadbourne.

Boxes 146-147 include oversize materials separated from their original files and stored flat.