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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Crown, Henry (1896-1990), entrepreneur and philanthropist
Jacob A. Vander Meulen
Article
Gates, John Warne (1855-1911), businessman
Larry Schweikart
Gates, John Warne (08 May 1855–09 August 1911), businessman, was born in Turner Junction, Illinois, the son of Asel Avery Gates and Mary Warne. His parents’ occupations are unknown. Gates was educated in local public schools and at North-Western College in Naperville and received a degree from a six-month commercial course in 1873. He then worked a number of odd jobs and saved his money. In 1876 he married Dellora Baker of St. Charles, Illinois; they had one child. A few years later Gates invested in a local hardware store, where he noticed that barbed wire for fencing had attained a sudden popularity. As wire fencing, it did not demand much wood, which was scarce on the range. The wire was perfect for containing western-range cattle, and it was inexpensive enough so that farmers could purchase it in large lots for the more sizable western ranches....
Article
Glidden, Joseph Farwell (1813-1906), farmer, inventor, and capitalist
Leonard F. Ralston
Glidden, Joseph Farwell (18 January 1813–09 October 1906), farmer, inventor, and capitalist, was born in Charlestown, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, the son of David Glidden and Polly Hurd, farmers. His family moved west to Orleans County, New York, when he was an infant. After attending local district schools, he studied at Middlebury Academy in Genesee County and at the seminary in Lima, New York. He taught school in the area for several years, but farming was always his first love. In 1837 he married Clarissa Foster in Clarendon, New York. Lacking funds to buy land in New York, he headed west in about 1840 with two crude threshing machines, doing custom threshing and general farm work. In 1842 he settled in De Kalb County, Illinois, where he purchased 600 acres of prairie land on the edge of De Kalb village. The death of the Gliddens’ three young children, followed by the death of his wife in 1843, left Glidden alone until 1851, when he married Lucinda Warne of De Kalb. They had one daughter....
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Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (1843-1914), lumberman and capitalist
Francesco L. Nepa
Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (21 November 1843–04 April 1914), lumberman and capitalist, was born in Niedersaulheim, Hessen, Germany, the son of John Weyerhaeuser and Katherine Gabel, prosperous farmers. He completed his education at a local Lutheran parochial school by age fourteen. His father died in 1846, forcing Weyerhaeuser to work on his family’s farm to help support his siblings and widowed mother. Weyerhaeuser came to the United States in 1852 at the age of eighteen. He had decided to leave Germany in order to escape that country’s strict military requirements. Accompanied by his mother and sister, Weyerhaeuser settled in Erie County in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he first worked in a brewery, then for a local farmer. He remained in Pennsylvania until 1856, at which time he moved to Coal Valley, Illinois, becoming involved in the lumber, grain, and coal businesses. He married Elizabeth Sarah Bloedel, also from Niedersaulheim, in 1857; the couple has seven children....
