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Mohawk Airlines Records

An inventory of its records at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: MPK
Date: Nov 1978

Biographical History

Mohawk Airlines began operations in 1945 as Robinson Airlines out of Ithaca, New York. In 1948 its headquarters relocated to Utica, New York, and the name was changed to Mohawk Airlines in 1952 when the company was purchased by Robert Peach. Mohawk Airlines operated in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, primarily in New York and Pennsylvania, from the mid-1940s until its acquisition by Allegheny Airlines in 1972; at one point it also experimented with helicopter airline service to the Adirondacks.

At its height, the company employed over 2,200 people. The company pioneered several technical and social aspects of regional airline operations, including being the first airline in the United States to hire an African American flight attendant (1958), the first airline to use a centralized computer-based reservation service (1961), and the first regional airline to utilize flight simulators (1965).

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Mohawk Airlines Records consists of legal files, publicity, statistical files, financial files, bound reports, general files, and miscellaneous. There are no employee records in the collection.

Legal files relate to various cases, incidents, events, and issues; the material includes briefs, petitions, motions, testimony, reports, applications, and other forms of legal data. Publicity includes newspaper clippings, news releases, newsletters, advertising, and information bulletins. Statistical files contains assorted statistics such as passenger load and airport activity. Financial files includes bound and unbound financial statements and operating forecasts. Bound reports concern various aspects of the business, including station traffic, traffic flow analyses, schedules, and so on. General files consists of financial forecasts and marketing department material. Miscellaneous material includes books, films, and general information on local service airlines and helicopter airlines.

Arrangement of the Collection

Legal files are subdivided by the identification number assigned by Mohawk Airlines and are in chronological (?) order. Publicity, general files, and miscellaneous are arranged alphabetically by type of material. Statistical files, bound reports, and financial files are in no particular order.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Subject Headings

Corporate Bodies

Mohawk Airlines -- Archives.
Robinson Airlines Corporation -- Archives.

Subjects

Aeronautics, Commercial -- Law and legislation.
Aeronautics, Commercial -- United States.
Airlines -- Management.
Airlines -- United States.

Genres and Forms

Clippings (information artifacts)
Correspondence.
Legal files.
Press releases.
Reports.
Statistics.

Occupations

Aeronautics.
Transportation.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Mohawk Airlines Records,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Table of Contents

Legal files

Publicity

Statistical files

Financial files

Bound reports

General files

Miscellaneous

Inventory