Brown, Moses (12 September 1738–06 September 1836), merchant and philanthropist, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of James Brown, merchant, and Hope Power. The father died the next year, leaving a variety of properties and businesses, which indicates that his family was far from poor. Moses Brown had a few years of formal schooling before being apprenticed to his merchant uncle, Obadiah, to learn the intricacies of eighteenth-century commerce and to be adopted as a son and partner. After Obadiah died in 1762, Moses managed the business, and in 1774 married Obadiah’s daughter Anna, who bore three children, two of whom lived to maturity. Moses joined his three surviving brothers in the firm of Nicholas Brown & Co. to operate the family businesses. The profits of trade were diversified by manufacturing and money-lending. The Brown brothers inherited profitable candle and chocolate works and started a plant to smelt and work iron. They also tried at least one ill-fated slaving voyage....
Article
Brown, Moses (1738-1836), merchant and philanthropist
Sydney V. James and Gail Fowler Mohanty
Article
Jarman, W. Maxey (1904-1980), corporate executive and philanthropist
David E. Kucharsky
Jarman, W. Maxey (10 May 1904–09 September 1980), corporate executive and philanthropist, was born Walton Maxey Jarman in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of James Franklin Jarman, part-owner of a shoe company, and Eugenia Maxey. In his youth Jarman liked working with cars and radios and attended a local public high school specializing in engineering and other technical subjects. He also had a hand in starting WSM, Nashville’s first radio station. He enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an electrical engineering major, but quit during his junior year in 1924 to join his father in starting a new shoe factory. The firm, known at first as Jarman Shoe Company, began with capital of $130,000. It reached $1,000,000 in sales and turned a profit the first year and established the pattern of doubling sales and profits every six years. Jarman married Sarah McFerrin Anderson of Gallatin, Tennessee, in 1928. She had studied math at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and was an accomplished diver, noted for her jumps from cliffs into the Cumberland River. The couple raised three children....
Article
Johnson, George Francis (1857-1948), shoe manufacturer and philanthropist
Leonard F. Ralston
Johnson, George Francis (14 October 1857–28 November 1948), shoe manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in Milford, Massachusetts, the son of Francis A. Johnson, seaman and shoe worker, and Sarah Jane Aldrich. Johnson’s childhood was spent in a series of New England villages as his father moved about in search of better work. He left school at age thirteen to go to work in a boot factory....
Article
King, Roswell (1765-1844), builder, overseer, and manufacturer
The Editors
King, Roswell (03 May 1765–15 February 1844), builder, overseer, and manufacturer, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, the son of Timothy King and Sarah Anne Fitch, weavers. King’s parents were poor at his birth but prospered thereafter. The extent of his education is unknown, but some is presumed on account of his birth in New England, where schools were generally available, and to his writing ability. Like many New Englanders in the postrevolutionary period, he moved to the South. He settled in Darien, Georgia, in 1789 and married Catherine Barrington in 1792. The couple had nine children. In Darien, King became county surveyor, justice of the peace, justice of the county inferior court, and a member of the Georgia House of Representatives (1794–1795). Two brothers, Reuben and Thomas, also came to Darien after King. King and his brother Reuben entered into a partnership to tan leather and make shoes, with his brother doing the work and King apparently supplying the capital. Early in his stay at Darien, King was the builder of Thomas Spalding’s South End House on Sapelo Island, built of tabby....
Article
Lawrence, Abbott (1792-1855), manufacturer, philanthropist, and diplomat
David A. Zonderman
Lawrence, Abbott (16 December 1792–18 August 1855), manufacturer, philanthropist, and diplomat, was born in Groton, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Lawrence and Susanna Parker, farmers. Lawrence was educated at the district school and the town academy. In 1808 he went to Boston as an apprentice in the warehouse of his older brother, Amos Lawrence (1786–1852), who was a well-established merchant in the city. In 1814 Abbott was admitted to partnership, and the firm of A. & A. Lawrence was founded, specializing in imports of English goods. Taking advantage of renewed trade following the War of 1812, the firm became one of the wealthiest in Boston. In 1819 Lawrence married Katherine Bigelow, the daughter of Timothy Bigelow, then Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Lawrence and his wife had seven children....
Article
Lowell, John (1799-1836), philanthropist and businessman
Sandra Opdycke
Lowell, John (11 May 1799–04 March 1836), philanthropist and businessman, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Francis Cabot Lowell, one of the nation’s first great cotton manufacturers, and Hannah Jackson. Lowell, whose family generally called him John, Jr., was born prematurely and was sickly as a boy. In 1810 he accompanied his family on an extended trip to Europe. While Lowell attended school in Edinburgh, Scotland, his father studied the new English power looms, surreptitiously gathering enough information to launch mechanized cotton weaving in the United States. The next year the family moved to Paris, where Lowell again attended school. Sailing home on an American ship in the midst of the War of 1812, they were captured by the British and detained in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before finally arriving back in Boston....
Article
Slater, John Fox (1815-1884), textile manufacturer and philanthropist
Jack Blicksilver
Slater, John Fox (04 March 1815–07 May 1884), textile manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in Slatersville, Rhode Island, the son of John Slater, a successful cotton manufacturer who established the company town of Slatersville, and Ruth Bucklin. Slatersville was sited by John Slater in 1805, two years after he migrated to the United States, at age twenty-seven, from Derbyshire, England, bringing with him a knowledge of the latest in cotton textile technology. John joined his older brother ...
