Allen, Paul Gardner (21 January 1953–15 October 2018), software pioneer, investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, was born in Seattle, Washington to Kenneth Allen, a University of Washington librarian, and Faye Gardner Allen, a teacher. He attended Lakeside School in Seattle. In ninth grade he met seventh-grader Bill Gates, with whom he shared an enthusiasm for computer programming. During their school years they worked on computers after hours at their school, at a downtown computer center, and at the University of Washington computer science lab. They formed a company that they called Traf-O-Data to count traffic volumes, a very early entry in the “smart city” movement. In the summer of ...
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Allen, Paul Gardner (21 January 1953–15 October 2018), software pioneer, investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
Carl Abbott
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Baldwin, John (1799-1884), manufacturer and philanthropist
David W. Robson
Baldwin, John (13 October 1799–28 December 1884), manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in North Branford, Connecticut, the son of Joseph Baldwin, a blacksmith, and Rosanna Meloy. Baldwin’s parents, devout Congregationalists, espoused antiliquor, antitobacco, and antislavery beliefs, which he, too, would champion. He had a conversion experience and became an evangelical Methodist at eighteen. After briefly attending an academy during his late teens, Baldwin taught school in New York, Maryland, and finally Litchfield, Connecticut. In January 1828 he married Mary D. Chappel of New London, Connecticut, herself a Methodist of humble station. They had seven children....
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Bernays, Doris Elsa Fleischman (1892-1980), pioneer public relations counsel and early feminist
Peter E. Mayeux
Bernays, Doris Elsa Fleischman (18 July 1892–10 July 1980), pioneer public relations counsel and early feminist, was born in New York City, the daughter of Samuel E. Fleischman, an attorney, and Harriet Rosenthal. Doris studied music and planned to become an opera singer when she completed her bachelor’s degree at Barnard College in 1913. Instead, that same year she joined the ...
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Blackwell, Henry Browne (1825-1909), social reformer, editor, and entrepreneur
Debra Viles
Blackwell, Henry Browne (04 May 1825–07 September 1909), social reformer, editor, and entrepreneur, was born in Bristol, England, the son of Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner and antislavery reformer, and Hannah Lane. After business reversals the family moved in 1832 to New York, where their household became a haven for abolitionists, women’s rights advocates, and self-emancipated slaves. In 1838 the debt-ridden Blackwells moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. When his father died a few months later, thirteen-year-old Henry went to work to support the family, initially as a clerk in a flour mill. In 1845 he joined the two illiterate millers as a partner, and two years later his brother made him a partner in a hardware firm. Within a few years the enterprising Henry (“Harry” to his friends) had his finger in many economic pies—among them an agricultural publishing firm, land speculation, and sugar beet production (perhaps after his father, who had sought an alternative to slave-based sugar cane). At the same time Harry moved to the forefront of women’s rights agitation and abolitionism....
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Carse, Matilda Bradley (1835-1917), temperance worker, editor, and entrepreneur
Ruth Bordin
Carse, Matilda Bradley (19 November 1835–03 June 1917), temperance worker, editor, and entrepreneur, was born near Belfast, Ireland, the daughter of John Bradley and Catherine Cleland, Scottish merchants whose ancestors had migrated to Ireland in the seventeenth century. Educated in Ireland, Carse emigrated in 1858 to Chicago. In 1861 she married Thomas Carse, a railroad manager with whom she had three sons. After her husband’s death in 1870, her youngest son was killed by a drunken drayman, propelling Carse into the temperance cause just as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was organizing. She devoted much of the rest of her life to business and volunteer activities related to that organization....
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Coker, James Lide (1837-1918), entrepreneur and philanthropist
Thomas E. Terrill
Coker, James Lide (03 January 1837–25 June 1918), entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born on a plantation near Hartsville, South Carolina, the son of Caleb Coker, a planter and merchant, and Hannah Lide. Coker’s father also served as a director of the Chersaw and Darlington (S.C.) Railroad. His wealth afforded Coker considerable advantages that he used and built upon. His education was similar to that of other sons of South Carolina’s planter elite. Schooled in a local, privately supported academy, he then attended The Citadel. However, in 1857 he took the unusual step of going to Harvard to take courses in chemistry and botany, working under ...
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Cone, Moses Herman (1857-1908), textile entrepreneur
Dale L. Flesher
Cone, Moses Herman (29 June 1857–08 December 1908), textile entrepreneur, was born in Jonesboro, Tennessee, the son of Herman Kahn, a Jewish wholesale grocery merchant, and Helen Guggenheimer. Cone’s father was born in Bavaria, and his mother, though born in Virginia, was of German heritage. When Cone’s father moved to the United States, the family name was changed to Cone. Cone was the eldest of thirteen children and spent his formative years in Jonesboro, where his father owned a grocery store. The family moved in 1870 to Baltimore, Maryland, where Cone attended the public schools....
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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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DeBaptiste, George (1814?–22 February 1875), abolitionist and businessman
David F. Herr
DeBaptiste, George (1814?–22 February 1875), abolitionist and businessman, was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the son of John DeBaptiste, a businessman, and Frances “Franky” (maiden name unknown). Although the details of DeBaptiste’s early life are uncertain, he appears to have traveled to Richmond, Virginia, as a youth, where he learned to barber and where, perhaps in 1829, as a free black, he first helped a slave escape. While still in Virginia, he married his first wife, Maria Lucinda Lee, a slave, and bought her freedom. DeBaptiste subsequently remarried and had two children; his second wife’s name is unknown. As a young man he demonstrated strong loyalty to his family, who remained in Fredericksburg. On two separate occasions in the 1820s he financially secured the property of two sisters when they faced significant debt (Fitzgerald, p. 53)....
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Eastman, George (1854-1932)
In
George Eastman. Courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center.
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Eastman, George (1854-1932), inventor, businessman, and philanthropist
Elizabeth Brayer
Eastman, George (12 July 1854–14 March 1932), inventor, businessman, and philanthropist, was born in Waterville, New York, the son of George Washington Eastman, a nurseryman and educator, and Maria Kilbourn. His father’s pioneering work in establishing Eastman Mercantile (or Commercial) College in Rochester in 1842, a prototype for later business schools, perhaps inspired Eastman to be a trailblazer in another field. His father died when George was seven, two years after the family moved to Rochester, and his mother took in boarders. Eastman attended public and private schools until age thirteen, when he became an office boy in a real estate firm to help support his mother and two older sisters. A year later Eastman transferred to an insurance office and in 1874 he became a bookkeeper for the Rochester Savings Bank....
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Ford, Barney Launcelot (1822–14 December 1902), conductor on the Underground Railroad, Black suffrage lobbyist, and real estate baron
Maria Elena Raymond
Ford, Barney Launcelot (1822–14 December 1902), conductor on the Underground Railroad, Black suffrage lobbyist, and real estate baron, was born in Stafford County, Virginia, the son of a Mr. Darington (given name unknown), an enslaver and plantation owner, and Phoebe (surname unknown), one of Darington’s enslaved workers. Given simply the name “Barney” at birth, he adopted the name Barney Launcelot Ford as an adult to please his soon-to-be wife and to provide himself with a “complete” name....
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Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar (1823-1915), businessman, politician, and race leader
Loren Schweninger
Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar (17 April 1823–11 July 1915), businessman, politician, and race leader, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jonathan C. Gibbs, a Methodist minister, and Maria Jackson. His parents were free blacks. His father died when Mifflin was seven years old, and his mother was an invalid. As a teenager, Mifflin attended the Philomathean Institute, a black men’s literary society, and, like his brother ...
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Hammer, Armand (1898-1990)
In
Armand Hammer Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-114806 ).
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Hammer, Armand (1898-1990), entrepreneur and philanthropist
Stephen J. Randall
Hammer, Armand (21 May 1898–10 December 1990), entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Russian-born Julius Hammer, a pharmacist and physician, and Rose Robinson. Hammer’s childhood economic circumstances were better than those of many of his immigrant contemporaries. When he was still a child, his family moved to the Bronx, where his father balanced a quest for a medical degree with the demands of his drugstores. Hammer attended Morris High School and in 1917 registered at Columbia Heights Premedical School. Two years later he enrolled at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, from which he graduated in June 1921....
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Hernandez, Aileen Clarke (23 May 1926–13 February 2017), feminist activist, government official, and business consultant
Katherine Turk
Hernandez, Aileen Clarke (23 May 1926–13 February 2017), feminist activist, government official, and business consultant, was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jamaican immigrants Charles Henry Clarke, Sr., an artist’s brush maker, and Ethel Louise Clarke (née Hall), a seamstress. They raised Aileen and her two brothers in the predominantly white neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She blossomed at the all-girls Bay Ridge High School, graduating as the salutatorian of the class of ...
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Hewlett, William (Bill) (30 May 1913–12 January 2001), engineer, electronics industry executive, and philanthropist
Robert A. Burgelman and Charles H. House
Hewlett, William (Bill) (30 May 1913–12 January 2001), engineer, electronics industry executive, and philanthropist, was born William Redington Hewlett in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Louise Redington and Albion Walter Hewlett. His father was a professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. In ...
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Jonsson, John Erik (1901-1995), co-founder of Texas Instruments and mayor of Dallas
Edward A. Goedeken
Jonsson, John Erik (06 September 1901–31 August 1995), co-founder of Texas Instruments and mayor of Dallas, was born in Brooklyn, the only child of John Peter and Ellen Charlotte Palmquist, both small merchants. In 1911 Jonsson's family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where his family operated a stationery and tobacco store. During his school years, Eric worked at a number of small jobs and helped in his parents' shop. He graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and hoped to study journalism at Columbia University but lacked the academic credits necessary for acceptance, so instead Jonsson enrolled in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York....
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Kane, Thomas Leiper (1822-1883), lawyer, soldier, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and defender of the Mormons
David J. Whittaker
Kane, Thomas Leiper (27 January 1822–26 December 1883), lawyer, soldier, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and defender of the Mormons, was born in Philadelphia, the son of John Kintzing Kane, a jurist, and Jane Duval Leiper. He attended school in Philadelphia and from 1839 to 1844 traveled in England and France, studying and visiting relatives. While in Paris he served for a time as an attaché of the American legation. Small in stature and never robust, he would spend most of his life struggling with ill health. In Paris he met Auguste Comte and others who surely encouraged his social conscience, which would be manifested later in his concern for philanthropic causes. In 1844 Kane returned to Philadelphia, where he studied law with his father. Although he was admitted to the bar in 1846 and clerked briefly for his father, who was a federal judge, his interests and activities generally moved in other directions....
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Kerr, James Hutchison (1837-1919), educator, entrepreneur, and progressive
Joe P. Dunn
Kerr, James Hutchison (30 August 1837–10 June 1919), educator, entrepreneur, and progressive, was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, the son of John Alexander Kerr, a farmer, and Eliza Jane Hutchison. He was educated in local rural public schools, and at age fourteen when the regular teacher at his school became ill, Kerr was named the teacher to finish the academic year. Beginning in the fall of 1852, at age fifteen, Kerr spent a year at the John Turner Seminary in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and during the next two years he completed the civil engineering course at New London Academy in Pennsylvania. Following his graduation in 1854, he spent four months as an assistant railroad engineer before returning as a half‐day assistant teacher at the New London Academy. In the 1855–1856 academic year he studied mining, chemistry, metallurgy, and geology at Westminster College in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and also served as a part‐time teacher. In 1857 he operated a tea and spice business in Rochester, New York, and he studied the natural sciences, including geology and paleontology, at the local university. From September 1859 to May 1861 he was the principal of Franklinville Academy in rural Cattaraugus County, New York, and during the summer months he studied geology in New York, New England, Canada, and the American West....
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