Herbert H. Franklin (1866 - 1956)

Inventor, Businessman. An automotive Pioneer, in 1901 he teamed up with engineer John Wilkinson to delevope an air-cooled engine. When Wilkinson lost interest in project, Franklin assumed control of the company, renaming it the Franklin Automobile Company. The first Franklin car was sold in 1902 and produced the first air-cooled automobile engine. Franklin cars were […]

Sir Joseph Francis (1801 - 1893)

Founder of U. S. Life Saving Service and American Ship Wreck Society.  Family links:  Spouse:  Ellen Francis (____ – 1872)*  Children:  Isaac P. Francis (1834 – 1910)* *Calculated relationship

Richard Kyle Fox (1846 - 1922)

Newspaper Publisher.  He is considered the “Father of the Tabloid”. Born in Ireland, he worked as a journalist and newspaper editor there until he immigrated to the United States in 1874. He took over as owner and editor of “The National Police Gazette” in 1877 and made it one of the most widely-read newspapers in […]

John M. Fox (1912 - 2003)

Businessman. He was the founder of The Minute Maid Corporation which revolutionized frozen orange juice concentrate. He also popularized the Chiquita brand-name banana by putting the Chiquita sticker on the bananas. (bio by: John  Sheets)

Eldridge Locke Fox (1936 - 2002)

Businessman. A long-time manager and owner also former baritone vocalist of the Kingsmen Quartet in Asheville, North Carolina, he started Pinnacle Records and Horizon Records. He produced recordings for hundreds of groups, including “Gold City”, “The Greenes”, “HeavenBound”, “The Primitive Quartet”, “The Gospel Enforcers” and more. (bio by: Paul J. Lambert)  Family links:  Parents:  Denver […]

Max Foster (1906 - 1996)

Businessman. He was the founder and patriarch of Foster Farms poultry and dairy company. In 1939, Foster was a city editor at the Modesto Bee when he and his wife, Verda, made a down payment on a repossessed 80-acre farm near Modesto, California, using $1,000 borrowed on a life insurance policy. They began raising turkeys […]

John Baptiste Ford (1811 - 1903)

Industrialist. He founded Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Family links:  Spouse:  Mary Bower Ford (1806 – 1897)* *Calculated relationship

Henry Ford, II (1917 - 1987)

Businessman. An automobile magnate, he was born the first of four children to Edsel and Eleanor Clay Ford, (and was the first grandchild of industrial pioneer Henry Ford). In May 1943, his father Edsel Ford died, and his frail aging grandfather Henry Ford became company President again. Henry Ford II was serving in the United […]

Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)

Pioneer Industrialist.  Founder of the Ford Motor Company.  He was a Midwestern farm boy with a grammar school education who rose to become the world’s largest auto manufacturer.  In an era when automobiles were hand-crafted luxury items,  he developed the mass-produced Model T,  the first car the average person could afford.  In the process he […]

Edsel Bryant Ford (1893 - 1943)

Ford Motor Company President. The only child of Henry Ford I and Clara Bryant, he married Eleanor Lowthian Clay in 1916. A designer and executive, he was the first secretary of the Ford Motor Company, becoming its president in 1921 and serving until 1943. He developed the collections of decorative arts and Americana at the […]

Benson Ford, Sr (1919 - 1978)

Second son of Edsel Bryant Ford I and Eleanor Lowthian Clay, he was at first named Edsel Junior, but re-named Benson, a Hudson family name, his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Easygoing, affable and good-humored, he worked in the Ford Rouge with Henry Ford II, his older brother, until their enlistment after Pearl Harbor. In June […]

James Athearn Folger (1835 - 1889)

Businessman. Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Brown Folger and Nancy Hill, the second youngest to nine children. At the age of 14, James and his brothers Henry and Edward headed for California in search for gold. James remained in San Francisco to work for his travel costs while his older brothers proceeded […]

Anthony “Tony” Fokker (1890 - 1939)

Anthony “Tony” Fokker was a player in the early aviation warfare. He began his own aircraft building company in 1912 named Fokker Aviatik. After WWI broke out, his company became a prominent builder of German combat airplanes. After WWI, Fokker moved from his native Holland to the United States. He continued his Fokker Aircraft company […]

Friedrich Karl Flick (1927 - 2006)

Industrialist. He graduated in business economics from the University of Munich in 1957 and joined his father’s Flick Enterprises. He was named head of the business in 1975, building the Flick Group’s stakes in Daimler-Benz, Feldmuhle, Dynamit Nobel and other automotive, paper and chemical ventures, into a worldwide conglomerate. He was believed to be Austria’s […]

Charles Louis Fleischmann (1835 - 1897)

Yeast Manufacturer. A native of Budapest, Hungary, he was educated in Vienna and Prague before emigrating to America in 1866. Along with his brother and another business partner, he produced and sold compressed yeast and distilled spirits. The Fleischmann Yeast Company eventually became the world’s leading yeast producer and the second largest in the production […]

Sir John Fleet (1970 - 1712)

Governor of the East India Company, and President of St.Batholomew’s Hospital. MP and Lord Mayor of London in 1693. (bio by: David Conway)

James “Big Jim” Fisk (1835 - 1872)

Financier. One of the most prominent bankers and money men of the post-Civil War era, he teamed with fellow financier Jay Gould to corner the New York City, New York gold market in 1869. This attempt to consolidate the wealth in the hands of the two men resulted in the Financial Panic of 1869 (called […]

Max Fisher (1908 - 2005)

Oil and real estate magnate. Presidential advisor.  Family links:  Parents:  William Fisher (1888 – 1971)  Molly Brody Fisher (1888 – 1969)  Spouses:  Sylvia Krell Fisher (1910 – 1952)*  Marjorie Switow Fisher (1923 – 2016)*  Siblings:  Max Fisher (1908 – 2005)  Gail Fisher Ross (1910 – 1996)*  Anne Fisher Rose (1917 – 2005)* *Calculated relationship

Stuyvesant Fish (1851 - 1923)

Business Magnate.  Born the son of Hamilton Fish into a prominent New York family,  he was president of the Illinois Central Railroad from 1887 to 1906, its period of greatest expansion. In 1906, after a long legal battle, he was ousted by E. H. Harriman and promptly joined up with the competition, in this case, […]

Harvey S. Firestone, Jr (1898 - 1973)

Businessman. Son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Comoany, he served the company for half a century. As chief executive officer from 1946 until 1963, he saw Firestone’s sales doubled to $1.3 billion, with 121 plants and facilities in 29 countries. He was the author of “Man On The Move: The Story […]

Harvey Samuel Firestone (1868 - 1938)

American industrialist and inventor, best known for his pioneering work in the development of pneumatic car and truck tires and as founder of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. He was born Harvey Samuel Firestone in the small town of Columbiana, Ohio on December 20, 1868, the son of a prosperous farmer. Harvey Firestone had […]

William Wood Finney (1829 - 1910)

Pony Express Co-Founder, Civil War Confederate Army Officer. Born at “Prospect Hill.” Graduated Virginia Military Institute. Served as assistant principal of Warrenton Male Academy in North Carolina until 1850 when he went west for gold. He took up engineering and surveyed for the railroad in Vera Cruz, Mexico. In 1858 he returned to the United […]

Albert Fink (1827 - 1897)

Railroad engineer and operator, generally regarded as the “Father of Railway Economics and Statistics” in the United States; he was also known as the “Teutonic Giant” because he was 6′ 7″ tall. He was educated at private and polytechnic schools at Darmstadt, Germany, he graduated in engineering and architecture in 1848.  Unsympathetic with the forces […]

Marshall Field, III (1893 - 1956)

Businessman, Newspaper Publisher. He was the grandson and heir of Marshall Field, who founded the Chicago, Illinois-based Marshall Field and Company department stores. He was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 28, 1963 to Marshall Field, Jr. and Albertine Huck Field, and was raised primarily in England where he received his education at Eton College […]

Cyrus West Field (1819 - 1892)

Businessman. He was a entrepreneur, most noted as a pioneer in the telegraph industry. In the early 1850s, he was successful in the paper mill business when became interested in the telegraph field. With his civil engineer brother Matthew and Frederick Newton Gisborne, they worked on the project of for a telegraph across to Newfoundland […]

Frank W. Feuerbacher (1850 - 1928)

Native St. Louisan Feuerbacher decided to enter the brewing & malting industry after high school graduation. He served his apprenticeship in Cincinnati & Milwaukee. He returned to St. Louis in 1880 & founded a malt house under the firm name of Frank W. Feuerbacher & Co., which did an extensive business throughout the country. He […]

Ruth Fertel (1927 - 2002)

Founder of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. (bio by: Joel Berry)

Sereno Peck Fenn (1844 - 1927)

Paint magnate. One of three principal founders of the Sherwin-Williams Company.

Charles Feltman (1841 - 1910)

Businessman. A German immigrant, he was a catalyst in the development of Brooklyn, New York City’s Coney Island as an entertainment resort and an amusement park. Among his enduring innovations was the creation of the classic American “hot dog”, as he was the first to sell the popular sausages on a bun.

Christian William Feigenspan (1876 - 1939)

Businessman. He took over Newark, New Jersey’s Feigenspan Brewery Company, founded by his father in 1868, when his father died in 1899. He then transformed the company into one of the best known breweries up until and after prohibition. Today it’s labels are the among the most sought after by collectors.