Baldwin, William Henry, Jr. (05 February 1863–03 January 1905), railroad executive and philanthropist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of William Henry Baldwin, a dry goods merchant, and Mary Chaffee. A direct descendant of an English settler who had arrived in Massachusetts before 1640, Baldwin grew up in a family noted for its commitment to abolition and other reforms. His father founded the Young Men’s Christian Union of Boston, an adult social service organization. When Baldwin was five years old, his father retired from his successful mercantile career to serve as the union’s president....
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Baldwin, William Henry, Jr. (1863-1905), railroad executive and philanthropist
Eric Anderson
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Crown, Henry (1896-1990), entrepreneur and philanthropist
Jacob A. Vander Meulen
Crown, Henry (13 June 1896–14 August 1990), entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born Henry Krinsky in Chicago, the son of Arie Krinsky, a Lithuanian immigrant garment worker, and his wife Ida Gordon. At some point they changed their name to Crown. To help his poor family, Crown took a job at age fourteen as clerk at the Chicago Firebrick Company. In 1912 he began work at the Union Drop Forge Company, while taking night courses in accounting. In 1915 he and his two older brothers, Sol and Irving, formed a small steel-brokerage company, S. A. Crown and Company, and Crown quickly established a local reputation as an aggressive and reliable deal maker with a discerning eye for opportunity, a striking power of recall, and an acute sense of timing....
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Eno, William Phelps (1858-1945), philanthropist and reformer of street traffic regulation
Peter D. Norton
Eno, William Phelps (03 June 1858–03 December 1945), philanthropist and reformer of street traffic regulation, was born in New York City, the son of Amos Eno, a banker and real estate investor, and Lucy Phelps. Eno came from an old and very wealthy Connecticut family. He was admitted to Yale with the class of 1881, but withdrew after three years because of illness. In 1883 Eno married Alice Rathbone of New Orleans, who died in 1911. He was an associate in his father’s real estate firm from 1884 until 1899....
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Green, John Cleve (1800-1875), philanthropist, railroad entrepreneur, and China trader
Richard Groves
Green, John Cleve (04 April 1800–29 April 1875), philanthropist, railroad entrepreneur, and China trader, was born in Lawrenceville (formerly Maidenhead), New Jersey, the son of Caleb Smith and Elizabeth Green. His great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Dickinson, was first president of the College of New Jersey, which later became Princeton University; this family connection would later play a great part in Princeton’s future....
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Johnson, Tom Loftin (1854-1911), street railway magnate and municipal reformer
Jon C. Teaford
Johnson, Tom Loftin (18 July 1854–10 April 1911), street railway magnate and municipal reformer, was born near Georgetown, Kentucky, the son of Albert William Johnson and Helen Loftin. His father was a slaveholding planter who served as a colonel in the Confederate army. Impoverished by the Civil War, in 1868 the family settled outside of Louisville, Kentucky, near supportive friends and relatives. Before Tom was fifteen he secured an office job with a Louisville street railway company that had recently been purchased by close family friends Alfred V. and A. B. du Pont. This was the beginning of Johnson’s long business relationship with members of the wealthy family of explosive manufacturers. In 1873 Tom Johnson became superintendent of the streetcar company after having already patented the first coin fare box for streetcars. During his lifetime, the inventive Johnson was to obtain thirty-one patents....
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Kennedy, John Stewart (1830-1909), railroad commission merchant, private banker, and philanthropist
Saul Engelbourg
Kennedy, John Stewart (04 January 1830–31 October 1909), railroad commission merchant, private banker, and philanthropist, was born in Blantyre, Scotland (near Glasgow), the son of John Kennedy, probably a millhand, and Isabella Stewart. He attended school from age six to thirteen and received formal instruction outside of office hours for another four years....
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Kettering, Charles Franklin (1876-1958), inventor and automotive engineer
Stuart W. Leslie
Kettering, Charles Franklin (29 August 1876–25 November 1958), inventor and automotive engineer, was born in Loudonville, Ohio, the son of Jacob Kettering and Martha Hunter, farmers. He attended public schools and graduated at the top of his high school class. He spent two years teaching and then enrolled in the engineering program at the Ohio State University. Forced by chronic eye inflammation to withdraw at the beginning of his sophomore year, he took a job with a local telephone company line crew. Two years later he returned to Ohio State and graduated in 1904....
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Kettering, Charles Franklin (1876-1958)
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Charles Franklin Kettering. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; this acquisition was made possible by a generous contribution from the James Smithson Society.
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Osborn, William Henry (1820-1894), merchant, railroad executive, and philanthropist
John F. Stover
Osborn, William Henry (21 December 1820–02 March 1894), merchant, railroad executive, and philanthropist, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of William Osborn and Anna Henfield Bowditch, farmers. After a few years at local schools Osborn, at the age of thirteen, became a clerk in a Boston firm, the East India House of Peele, Hubbell & Company. Bright and quite capable, by age sixteen he was representing his firm in Manila, Philippine Islands. While still in his twenties Osborn set up his own import-export business in Manila. The new firm prospered and by the early 1850s he had made a small fortune. He left the Philippines, toured Europe, and returned to the United States in 1853....
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Otero, Miguel Antonio (1829-1882), politician and businessman
Mark L. Gardner
Otero, Miguel Antonio (21 June 1829–30 May 1882), politician and businessman, was born in Valencia, New Mexico, then a province of the Mexican Republic, the son of Don Vicente Otero and Dona Gertrudis Chaves y Argon. Vicente Otero was primarily a farmer and merchant but also filled local judicial positions under the Mexican government. Miguel Antonio Otero entered St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1841 and continued his education there until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in May 1846, at which time his parents sent for him. In 1847 he enrolled at Pingree College, located in Fishkill on the Hudson, New York. Within a short time he became a teacher at the college and also an assistant to the principal. In 1849 Otero commenced the study of law, first with James Thayer, an attorney living in Fishkill on the Hudson, then with a General Sanford in New York City during the winter of 1849–1850, and finally with Trusten Polk in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1851 to 1852. Otero was admitted to the Missouri bar in the spring of 1852, immediately after which he returned to New Mexico, now a U.S. territory. That same year he took a herd of sheep, presumably the property of his brother, Antonio José Otero, overland to California....
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Paul, Josephine Bay (1900-1962), businesswoman and philanthropist
Thaddeus Russell
Paul, Josephine Bay (10 August 1900–06 August 1962), businesswoman and philanthropist, was born Josephine Holt Perfect in Anamosa, Iowa, the daughter of Otis Lincoln Perfect, a realtor, and Tirzah Holt. In 1906 the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Josephine Perfect grew up. In 1916 Josephine graduated from Brooklyn Heights Seminary and enrolled at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, where she studied for a year. She then spent the next ten years as a secretary and as the director of the Brooklyn Junior League’s bookstore, helping the store to recover from near bankruptcy. In 1928 Josephine and her sister Tirzah established a greeting card business in Brooklyn. With Tirzah as designer and Josephine as sales manager, the sisters managed to sustain a thriving business with distribution stretching from the East Coast to the Midwest. In 1933, following Tirzah’s marriage, the sisters dissolved the business....
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Powell, James Robert (1814-1883), businessman and founder of Birmingham, Alabama
Martin T. Olliff
Powell, James Robert (07 December 1814–09 December 1883), businessman and founder of Birmingham, Alabama, was born in Powellton, Brunswick County, Virginia, the son of Addison Powell and Sarah Gholson, planters. Powell was tutored at home for a few years before leaving in 1833 to work a short-lived job as an assistant teacher at Loundesboro Academy in Montgomery, Alabama. Having received a $1,000 loan from Angus McGehee, a distant relative, Powell leased the Planters’ Hotel in Montgomery, where he was able to move his family in 1834. The Powells subsequently moved to Wetumpka, where Addison Powell died in 1840....
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Stilwell, Arthur Edward (1859-1928), railroad builder and urban promoter
Keith L. Bryant
Stilwell, Arthur Edward (21 October 1859–26 September 1928), railroad builder and urban promoter, was born in Rochester, New York, the son of Charles Herbert Stilwell, a merchant, and Mary Augusta Pierson. At age sixteen, following his father’s failure in business, Arthur Stilwell ran away from home to become a traveling salesman. With only a few years of formal education and tutoring at home, Stilwell’s drive and ambition surmounted his lack of training as he sold advertising in railroad timetables. In 1879, while in Virginia, he met and married Jennie A. Wood, and they moved to Kansas City, where he operated briefly a printing shop. Following a short stint as an insurance salesman for Travelers Insurance Company in Chicago, he returned to Kansas City in 1886 and embarked on a career as a railroad and urban promoter....
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Thaw, William (1818-1889), transportation executive and philanthropist
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Thaw, William (12 October 1818–17 August 1889), transportation executive and philanthropist, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of John Thaw, a banker, and Elizabeth Thomas. His father, after an earlier career as a merchant seaman, entered the banking business and relocated to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia in 1804. In Pittsburgh the elder Thaw served as the chief clerk in the newly established branch of the Bank of Pennsylvania. His son received his early education at local schools before entering the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh); it is unclear whether he graduated. At the age of sixteen Thaw entered the workplace as a clerk with his father’s firm, which had since been taken over by the Bank of the United States. While employed at the bank, he traveled on horseback throughout the Ohio River valley making collections. During this trip Thaw not only gained knowledge of the area but also became aware of the tremendous potential benefits that improved transportation could bring to the region....
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Vanderbilt, Cornelius, II (1843-1899), railroad executive and philanthropist
Barbara Bennett Peterson
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, II (27 November 1843–12 September 1899), railroad executive and philanthropist, was born on his family's farm near New Dorp, Staten Island, New York, the son of William Henry Vanderbilt, a railroad magnate, and Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt. He was the favorite grandson and namesake of the family patriarch, ...
