Barron, Clarence Walker (02 July 1855–02 October 1928), financial journalist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Henry Barron, a teamster, and Elana Noyes. He was educated at the Prescott Grammar School in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Boston’s English High School, where he distinguished himself by writing prize-winning essays on railways and civil service reform. Preparing for a journalism career, Barron supplemented his writing talents by teaching himself shorthand, an activity he later would call “the best training for young men in practical life” ( ...
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Barron, Clarence Walker (1855-1928), financial journalist
Kevin J. Hayes
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Field, Marshall, III (1893-1956)
Maker: Arnold Genthe
In
Marshall Field III In military uniform during World War I. Photograph by Arnold Genthe. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-93592).
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Field, Marshall, III (1893-1956), investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist
Robert L. Gale
Field, Marshall, III (28 September 1893–08 November 1956), investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Marshall Field II and Albertine Huck. Being the grandson of the first Marshall Field, the Chicago multimillionaire merchant and real-estate developer, meant that Field would be heir to fabulous wealth—all the sooner when his father, unhappy and passive in his active father’s shadow, committed suicide in 1905 and then when his beloved grandfather died of pneumonia two months later. Field’s mother, who had lived in England with her husband and their children and who disliked Chicago, returned to England. The grandfather’s will provided well for Albertine and gave Field and his younger brother a $75 million trust together. Field attended Eton (1907–1912) and then Trinity College, Cambridge (1912–1914), studying mostly history and vacationing with the horsy set. He returned to the United States in 1914 and married Evelyn Marshall the following year; the couple had three children, including Marshall Field IV. He also studied high finance and played polo. In April 1917 he volunteered as a private, despite his earlier rheumatic fever, in the First Illinois Cavalry (quickly converted to artillery service). He was soon commissioned and promoted, saw action in France as a captain with the Thirty-third Division, and was decorated for gallantry at Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne....
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Heard, Dwight Bancroft (1869-1929), investment banker, farmer, and publisher
Elizabeth Zoe Vicary
Heard, Dwight Bancroft (01 May 1869–14 March 1929), investment banker, farmer, and publisher, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Leander Bradford Heard, a wholesale grocer, and Lucy Bancroft. His father died in 1882. After Heard finished high school in Brookline, Massachusetts, his mother moved the family to Chicago, where Heard began work at the hardware sellers Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett. The wife of the firm’s president, Adolphus Bartlett, was a distant relative of Heard, who quickly became Bartlett’s protégé. Heard was the company’s specialist in credit sales in Wisconsin and much of the Midwest. In 1893 he married Maie Pitkin Bartlett, Adolphus Bartlett’s daughter; they had one child....
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Ho, Chinn (1904-1987), financier, developer, and newspaper owner
Michaelyn P. Chou
Ho, Chinn (26 February 1904–12 May 1987), financier, developer, and newspaper owner, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Ho Ti Yuen, a clerk at the segregated British Pacific Club, and Kam Lan. In the “Chinn Ho Oral History Project” Ho said a sickly childhood delayed his elementary schooling and made him a “runt” who was “pushed around” when he did begin regular classes. In the meantime, having become an avid reader of the Pacific Club’s discarded business periodicals brought home by his father, Ho realized that he had to extend his boundaries and perform better than expected to gain recognition. Through sports he improved physically. He sold soft drinks, newspapers, school supplies, and advertising gimmicks. He was a 20-year-old senior at McKinley High School (class of 1924) when he motivated a small group of classmates to stage school events, including a carnival that paid off the $38 class debt for breaking windows. After graduating, they organized a social and business ...
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Holbrooke, Richard (24 Apr. 1941–13 Dec. 2010), diplomat, magazine editor, and investment banker
Jason M. Adkins
Holbrooke, Richard (24 Apr. 1941–13 Dec. 2010), diplomat, magazine editor, and investment banker, was born Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke in New York City, the son of Dan Holbrooke, a doctor, and Trudi Kearl (née Moos), a potter. Holbrooke’s Jewish parents immigrated to the United States separately before his birth. His father emigrated in the 1930s from Warsaw, Poland, and changed his last name from Goldbrajch, while Trudi emigrated to the US from Germany, via Argentina. Holbrooke’s father died of cancer when Richard was fifteen. Holbrooke attended and graduated from Scarsdale High School in New York in ...
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Hutton, E. F. (1875-1962), stockbroker, businessman, and syndicated columnist
James M. Smallwood
Hutton, E. F. (07 September 1875–11 July 1962), stockbroker, businessman, and syndicated columnist, was born Edward Francis Hutton in New York City, the son of farmer James Laws Hutton, an Ohioan who moved to New York to seek work. His mother’s name is not known....
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Meyer, Eugene Isaac (1875-1959)
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Eugene Meyer. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-105094).
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Meyer, Eugene Isaac (1875-1959), investment banker, government official, and newspaper publisher
Elizabeth Zoe Vicary
Meyer, Eugene Isaac (31 October 1875–17 July 1959), investment banker, government official, and newspaper publisher, was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Marc Eugene Meyer, a retail merchant, and Harriet Newmark. After growing up in San Francisco, Meyer attended the University of California for one year in 1892. He was a mediocre student who spent much of his time drinking and gambling. After his freshman year, his family moved to New York City and he transferred to Yale. By working much harder academically at Yale, Meyer earned excellent grades and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After skipping his junior year, he graduated with an A.B. with honors in 1895, ranking nineteenth in a class of 250. Meyer then spent two years in Europe learning French and German and gaining work experience in banking and international finance. On returning to the United States, Meyer was employed by the international banking firm of Lazard Frères, where his father was a partner. However, because his duties there were menial compared with the work he had been doing in Europe, Meyer left the firm in 1901, much against his father’s wishes, to open his own investment firm....
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Mitchell, John, Jr. (1863-1929), newspaper editor and banker
Willard B. Gatewood
Mitchell, John, Jr. (11 July 1863–03 December 1929), newspaper editor and banker, was born near Richmond, Virginia, on the estate of James Lyons, where his parents, John Mitchell and Rebecca (maiden name unknown), were house slaves. After gaining their freedom, the Mitchells were employed by Lyons as servants in his mansion in the city, where their son performed various chores and became a keen observer of the rituals of polite society practiced there. Mitchell’s mother exerted the decisive influence on him during his formative years: she instilled in him a fierce sense of racial pride, instructed him in the ways of gentlemanly conduct, and insisted on his regular attendance at the First African Baptist Church, where he was baptized at the age of fourteen. Over the objections of her white employer, Rebecca Mitchell arranged for her son’s education, first in a private school and later in public schools. An intensely competitive student with considerable artistic ability, Mitchell regularly won medals for superior performance and graduated at the head of his class at the Richmond Normal and High School in 1881....
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Pittock, Henry Lewis (1836-1919), newspaper publisher and businessman
Stephen Ponder
Pittock, Henry Lewis (01 March 1836–28 January 1919), newspaper publisher and businessman, was born in London, England, the son of Frederick Pittock, a printer, and Susanna Bonner. In 1839 the family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Pittock’s father began a printing business. Henry, the third of eight children, attended public schools and began working at his father’s print shop when he was twelve years old. In early 1853, inspired by stories of adventure on the Oregon frontier, Pittock, then seventeen, and a brother, Robert, left home to join two other families to emigrate to the West....
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Roberts, Ellis Henry (1827-1918), editor, congressman, and financier
Leonard Schlup
Roberts, Ellis Henry (30 September 1827–08 January 1918), editor, congressman, and financier, was born in Utica, New York, the son of Watkin Roberts, a factory worker, and Gwen Williams, immigrants from Wales. His father died in 1831, and consequently Roberts experienced a difficult childhood. He attended local schools. To support himself and earn money for more education, he learned the printer’s trade in the office of William Williams in Utica. Roberts did the usual work assigned to beginners and had mastered the trade and saved money by the time his brother Robert W. Roberts, under whom he continued to work, purchased the office. Roberts attended Whitestown Seminary for two terms in 1845 before enrolling in 1846 at Yale College, where he won a scholarship, took prizes for English composition, and edited the ...
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Rukeyser, Merryle Stanley (1897-1988), financial columnist and lecturer
Mary Frances Grosch
Rukeyser, Merryle Stanley (03 January 1897–21 December 1988), financial columnist and lecturer, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Isaac Rukeyser and Pauline Solomon. Rukeyser grew up in Manhattan, New York, and graduated from Townsend Harris High School at the age of sixteen. He began his newspaper career at the age of seventeen while attending Columbia University. During the summers of 1914 and 1915, he worked as a reporter for the ...
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Smith, Samuel Harrison (1772-1845), journalist and banker
Joseph P. McKerns
Smith, Samuel Harrison (1772–01 November 1845), journalist and banker, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jonathan Smith, a merchant, and Susannah Bayard. Smith’s father changed his legal name to Jonathan Bayard Smith after marriage. Smith was educated in Philadelphia schools and earned a B.A. (1787) and an M.A. (1790) from the University of Pennsylvania....
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Villard, Henry (1835-1900), railroad promoter and journalist
Jon Huibregtse
Villard, Henry (10 April 1835–12 November 1900), railroad promoter and journalist, was born Heinrich Hilgard in Speyer, Rhenish Bavaria, the son of Gustaf Hilgard, a local judge, and Katharina Pfeiffer. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Villard was an indifferent student. When his father threatened to enlist him in the military, Villard immigrated to the United States in August 1853. He changed his name to Villard, after a schoolmate he admired, to make it difficult for his family to trace him and engaged in a number of jobs during his first years in the United States. Villard eventually found work as a journalist for German-language papers and later for English-language papers, covering the ...
