Crawford H. Ellis founded the Pan-American Life Insurance Company (PALIC) in New Orleans in 1911 with the vision of bringing his underwriting business to “all the Americas.” In order to achieve such an ambitious goal, the company needed to grow, sustain, and manage an extensive satellite workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean from its New Orleans Home Office, or Casa Matriz. Physical exhibits and wall displays highlight employee magazines from the 1920s to 1990s that attest to the organization, scope, and protagonists of PALIC’s Latin American workforce in the twentieth century.
Home Office
The materials collected and displayed in Case 5 (see gallery images below) focused on the Latin American Department in the New Orleans Home Office of the Pan-American Life Insurance Company (PALIC) and members of its personnel over the years, including Juanita F. de Martínez. The text below relate to the items showcased in the above image.
Juanita F. de Martínez the Revista
Juanita F. de Martínez left an indelible imprint on Pan-American Life Insurance Company (PALIC) as the editor of its Spanish-language employee magazine from the 1930s to 1959. Martínez’s colleagues in New Orleans surprised her with a special tribute in the December 1943 issue (upper left corner of Case 5), praising her as the “most beloved” employee among the company’s Latin American workforce. Martínez maintained constant correspondence with PALIC’s agents in Latin America, soliciting news and photographs from staff, policyholders, and their families to publish in the Revista. She devised a variety of creative editorial strategies over the years, including “imaginary trips” (visitas imaginarias) to the countries in Latin America where PALIC had offices and special campaigns to rev up earnings (see magazine covers in top image above). The Revista issues featured in Case 6 put on view Martínez’s contributions to forging the company’s corporate culture in Spanish and unique Pan-Latin American identity at mid-century. It bears noting that Martínez had a special connection to Tulane: when outside the office, she taught Spanish classes at Newcomb College and the University.
The Latin American Department
The issues of Pan-American’s Life displayed in Case 5 (above) shed light on the workings of the Latin American Department at the New Orleans Home Office in the 1960s. The Department was responsible for every aspect of business outside the United States, from administration and agency to training, publicity, and promotion. As of 1961, its department’s 14 members coordinated operations of a staff of approximately 450 across 10 countries. Of particular note is the mention in the May 1961 issue of the company’s new Consultant for Latin American Operations, Joaquín Villodas Bird. Following Fidel Castro’s confiscation of the company’s operations Cuba, Bird, formerly PALIC’s General Manager in Havana, immigrated to New Orleans to take on the role of liaison.
Immigration
Pan-American Life Insurance Group’s employee magazines contain valuable testimonies for the study of Latin American immigration to New Orleans in the twentieth century, as exemplified by select materials in Case 5. The October 1963 issue of Pan-American’s Life Quarterly (left corner of the case) features the hire of Carol García, a former Davis Cup tennis player, who emigrated from Cuba to New Orleans via Venezuela. Interestingly, García notes that he chose to settle in New Orleans because he had “visited many times as a child with his parents”—a sign of the strong commercial relations between the Crescent City and Latin America at mid-century explored in the main gallery of this exhibit.
In the upper right corner of Case 5, the March 1970 issue of the palican magazine celebrates the recent citizenship of Myrna McDonald, an employee in the Medicare Division. McDonald, a native of Honduras, recalls learning of Pan-American Life Insurance as a young girl through the company’s ads in Reader’s Digest. She comments that she “never dreamed” that someday she would be “both an American citizen and a Pan-American employee,” having admired the New Orleans Home Office in pictures and imagined what it would be like to work there.
Affiliates in Latin America
The Casa Matriz managed communications with as many as 26 affiliate offices in Central and South America and the Caribbean; their agents and activities comprise the focus of a second wall display and physical exhibit in case 6. The materials collected and displayed in Case 6 focused on the operations and workforce at PALIC’s affiliate offices across Latin America and the Caribbean. leans Home Office of the Pan-American Life Insurance Company (PALIC) and members of its personnel over the years, including Juanita F. de Martínez. The text below relate to the items showcased in the above image.
Translation
At the top of Case 6, a feature story in the March 1976 issue of the Palican employee magazine details the work of the company’s full-time translators at the New Orleans Home Office. Whether translating “a letter about real estate in Venezuela, a legal brief from Colombia, or a medical diagnosis from Panama,” the team played an indispensable role in PALIC’s capacity to do business in Latin America. The three translators in the Legal Department and two in Underwriting represent the striking diversity of backgrounds of PALIC’s workforce at the Casa Matriz. Each of the five had been born in or grown up in a different Latin American country: Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.
Early Earners in Latin America
Sales agents working in Latin America feature prominently in Pan-American Life’s earliest employee magazines, matching and often outpacing their U.S. counterparts. The cover of the February 1922 issue of Pan-American Life Review (upper left corner of Case 6) pictures the company’s two largest producers, A.A. de Torz in Cuba and H.T. Boone in Panama. The “Honor Roll” list on the facing page was an early editorial strategy to publicize high-yield agents and agencies and incite transnational and trans-regional competition to rise to the top. As the years went on, the editorial team at the Home Office would incentivize agents to make the Honor Roll through sales “tournaments” like the one pictured in the June 1949 Revista (right). Also in 1949, two Latin American sales agents spent their earnings on a trip to Egypt; the photo on camelback they sent to the New Orleans Home Office made the November cover (see wall display immediately above).
International Conventions
One of the company’s key strategies to build a cohesive corporate identity and coherent underwriting practices across the Americas was to host international conventions in Latin America, which the region’s top agents could win the opportunity to attend. The Revista covers hanging above Cases 5 and 6 announce past and upcoming conferences in Guatemala City, Panama City, Mexico City, and Tegucigalpa. A October 1948 issue of the Revista in the lower right of Case 6 shows attendees at the Cuba convention, which had been heavily advertised in the magazine in preceding months. Materials displayed in the main gallery exhibits attest to other international conventions and press seminars that the company hosted in New Orleans, inciting not just PALIC employees, but also business people, politicians and journalists to travel from Latin America and the Caribbean to the Crescent City.
Today, the Pan-American Life Insurance Group’s extensive Latin American workforce continues to be a distinctive feature of its business. PALIG is one of the most important employers of Latinos in New Orleans, with a bilingual team that is a rarity among Crescent City corporations. The company currently has a presence in 22 countries outside the United States, with dedicated country managers for Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.