Watson's father, Thomas, was a lumber dealer. Young Tom Watson was educated at Addison (New York) Academy. His father urged him to study law when he graduated and offered to pay his college expenses, but Watson was anxious to pay his own way and to begin his business career. Watson took a year-long course at the Elmira (New York) School of Commerce and, at the age of 17, found a job as a bookkeeper in Clarence Risley's market in Painted Post, New York. Soon bored, he took a job as a peddler selling organs and sewing machines.
From such a modest start, Watson would eventually emerge as one of America's greatest and most influential business executives. He married Jeanette Mary Kittridge of Dayton, Ohio in 1913, and they had two sons and two daughters. Two of their sons, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. and Arthur K. Watson, followed their father to work at IBM. Thomas J. Watson, Jr. became president of the company in 1952 and was chairman from 1961 to 1971.
A Presbyterian and a Democrat, Watson was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
This is a free page. This page contains 186 words. This
biography contains 1,788 words (approx. 6 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Thomas John Watson Access Pass.
