George Huntington Mumford (1805 - 1871)

Business magnate. He was co-financier of the Western Union Telegraph Company with Don Alonzo Watson and Henry Sayre Potter. (bio by: Mount Hope NY)

Sam Muchnick (1905 - 1998)

Businessman. He was the founder of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948 and served as president for 25 years. Considered the dean of wrestling promoters, he also founded the St. Louis Wrestling Club in 1958. He was elected to the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003. Before becoming involved with wrestling, he was a […]

Lemuel Oscar Motlow (1970 - 1947)

Businessman. He was the owner and operator of the famous Jack Daniel Distillery. Jasper “Jack” Daniel took over the distillery just after the Civil War. It’s ownership eventually passed to Daniel’s nephew Lemuel Motlow. Prohibition had begun in the 1920s and he moved his distillery to St. Louis, Missouri and in 1923 he made a […]

William Russell Mote (1906 - 2000)

A successful businessman, Mote’s gifts founded the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. He had a lifelong love of fishing and the sea. He received the 1994 International Oceanographic Foundation’s Gold Medal Award for a “nonprofessional who has done the most in the past year to promote the study of the sea”. In addition, he […]

Atkinson Morley (1970 - 1858)

Left money with which the Atkinson Morley Hospital was built. He was a hotel proprietor.

Taichiro Morinaga (1970 - 1970)

Businessman. Founder of what is now known as the Morinaga Co. Ltd. He introduced the production of western-style confectionery products in Japan. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Max Morehouse (1865 - 1923)

Born in Elyria Ohio, Max Morehouse spent his adult life in the retail business owning stores in Elyria, Lorain, Findlay and Toledo Ohio before moving to Columbus Ohio in 1899 where he opened Rowland, Morehouse and Martens Co., a modern Department store that for a time challenged F.R. Lazarus and Company (located directly across High […]

Joseph Hopkins Millard (1836 - 1922)

US Senator. He came to the United States when he was 14 years old. The family settled in Jackson County, Iowa. He came to Omaha in October 1856 to work in the real estate firm of Barrows Millard & Company. In January 1867 he became the cashier of the Omaha National Bank. Later he was […]

Kokichi Mikimoto (1858 - 1954)

Businessman. Founder of the Mikimoto Jewelry company. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Simon J. Michelson (1879 - 1938)

Founder of Michelson Jewelers. (bio by: Tim Crutchfield)

Helen Honig Meyer (1907 - 2003)

Publisher. She worked her way through the ranks of Dell Publishing to become one of the first women to lead a major publishing company. She began working for Dell in 1923. She was the firm’s president and chief executive from the early 1950s until it was sold to Doubleday & Co. in 1976. During that […]

Fred G. Meyer (1886 - 1978)

Supermarket magnate. Born Frederick Grubmeyer, he traveled west and settled in Portland, Oregon, in 1909. There he founded the Java Coffee Company, which was renamed Mission Coffee Company in 1915. In 1922 he founded a grocery store bearing his name; 11 years later, pioneering the concept of “one-stop shopping,” he expanded his store to the […]

Chief Two Moon Meridas (1888 - 1933)

Business Figure. Born born Chico Colon Meridan, he became famous and wealthy in the early part of the 20th century by selling herbal medicines, some of which were claimed to be a “cure all”. He claimed to be of Sioux Native American birth, but that claim was never proven.

Alexander Mendelssohn (1798 - 1871)

Financier. As head of the Berlin-based Mendelssohn & Co. from 1848 until his death, he built it into Germany’s most important private bank of the late 19th Century. The son of the firm’s founder, Joseph Mendelssohn, he was born in Berlin into a distinguished family. His grandfather was German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn,  and his cousins […]

Algur Hurtle Meadows (1899 - 1978)

Businessman. He and J.W. Gilliland, a petroleum expert, formed the General American Oil Company in 1936. In 1941 he became the president and major stockholder, and by 1959 his company had 2,990 oil wells in fifteen states and Canada. He gave more than $34 million to Southern Methodist University, and by 1992 his foundation had […]

S. S. McClure (1970 - 1970)

American Publisher. Subject of the book “Success Story, The Life and Times of S.S. McClure” by Peter Lyon. Samuel McClure was a Scotch-Irish immigrant who entered the American publishing world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was described as a “genius” who had a revolutionary impact on the country’s newspapers and magazines […]

Robert Mazer (1923 - 2013)

Industrialist, philanthropist and longtime principal owner of the Chicago White Sox. He worked in the Chicago South Side stockyards and during World War II he served as an electronic technician in a Navy division headquartered at the Great Lakes Naval Center. Later he founded Mazer Chemicals, a manufacturer of chemical emulsifiers and surfactants and an […]

Oscar F. Mayer (1859 - 1955)

Business Magnate. He was the founder of the Oscar Mayer Company, which became one of the most successful and enduring meat and cold cut production companies in the United States. Born in Germany, in 1873, at the age of 14, the family grocery business failed, and he immigrated to the United States with his cousin. […]

August Wilhelm Maybach (1846 - 1929)

Automotive Pioneer, Industrialist. He was one of the first automobile manufacturers in Germany. With his lifelong partner Gottlieb Daimler, he invented the first fast-running petrol engine (1885). A smaller version of this engine was used later that year to create the first true motorcycle. In 1886, they built from a carriage the first four-wheel power […]

Tom May (1883 - 1968)

Founder of May Company Department stores.  Family links:  Parents:  Morton J. May (1881 – 1968)  Florence Goldman May (1884 – 1938)  Spouse:  Anita Kay Keiler May (1891 – 1976)*  Children:  Blanche Rose May Selden (1916 – 1943)*  Siblings:  Tom May (1883 – 1968)  Sarah Jane May Waldheim (1911 – 2004)*  Morton D May (1914 – […]

Robert Maxwell (1923 - 1991)

Jan Ludwig Hoch was born in Slatinske Doly, a village in the province of Ruthenia which was then in Czechoslovakia but which, after 1945, became part of the Ukraine. His parents, Mechel and Hannah, were Orthodox Jews. Mechel eked out a living as a cattle salesman, woodcutter and farm labourer. There were seven children in […]

Sid Maurer (1927 - 2000)

Popular founder and proprietor of the Atlas Supermarket, an icon Indianapolis neighborhood store that became renowned for stocking unusual foods that could not be found anywhere else, including a wide selection of kosher foods and other ethnic fare. David Letterman has acknowledged that working at Atlas for Mr. Maurer was one of his most important […]

Georges Matchabelli (1885 - 1935)

Businessman, Russian Nobility. A distinguished diplomat, before the Russian Revolution he had been an ambassador to Italy.  For generations his family had been the ruling family of the Province of Georgia, the Caucasus.  In 1916 he married Norina Gilli (born in Florence, Italy (1888) who became famous for her portrayal of “The Madonna” in Max […]

Paul Masson (1859 - 1940)

Vintner (wine maker).

Louis Marx (1896 - 1982)

Toy Magnate. At the age of sixteen and the oldest of three, Marx had to help support the family. On a friend’s recommendation, he was hired to work full-time at the Ferdinand J. Strauss Company, a toy manufacturer that produced items for Abraham & Strauss Department Stores and a pioneer in the tin toy industry. […]

Howard Carpenter Marmon (1876 - 1943)

Industrialist,  Automotive Innovator. Howard attend Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and then at the University of California where he was obtained a degree in engineering. The Marmon family prospered in the manufacturing of flour milling machinery with the Nordyke and Marmon Company which was established in 1851. Sons of the co-founder, Howard and Walter Marmon […]

Frederick F Neef (1846 - 1970)

Denver Brewing Magnate. Initially a clerk with Credit Lyonais in Lyons, France; emigrated to USA in 1871 and was a salesman working in wholesale paper firm in St. Louis; next to Omaha in wholesale sales. Came to Denver in 1873 and with brother, Max, opened saloon and dance hall; sold saloon in 1891 and bought […]

Charles Williams Nash (1864 - 1948)

Businessman, Automobile Magnate. He is remembered for founding Nash Motors Company in 1916 that continued to manufacture automobiles which appealed to America’s middle class until the mid-1950s. Born into a farming family, his parents divorced when he was six years old and he was sent to live and work as an indentured servant to a […]

Henri Nannen (1913 - 1996)

Publisher. Born in Emden, Germany, during World War II, he was a propaganda writer then became one of the most prominent journalists and magazine publishers in Germany. In the 1930s, he started working as a journalist for the propaganda unit in Italy and then was a speaker of the Olympic Oath for the 1936 games […]

Chikuhei Nakajima (1884 - 1949)

Nakajima was born as the eldest son of a farmer in Gunma Prefecture. He entered a naval academy at age 19 and became interested in in aviation after hearing about the exploits of the Wright Brothers. He assisted in the production of aircraft for the Japanese navy. After leaving the navy, he set up the […]