| Philip Danforth Armour | |
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| Born | May 16 1832 Stockbridge, New York |
| Died | January 6 1901 (aged 68) Chicago, Illinois |
Philip Danforth Armour (16 May 1832 – 6 January 1901) was an American businessman who founded Armour and Company, the giant American meatpacking firm.
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Biography
Armour was born in Stockbridge, New York to Danforth Armour and Juliana Ann Brooks. He was one of eight children and grew up on his family's farm. Armour was mostly of Scottish and English descent, with his surname originating in Scotland.[1] He was educated at Cazenovia Academy in New York before he dropped out and went to work on the family farm. In 1852 he walked across the country to mine the gold fields of California, and earned US$ several thousand dollars there. He then moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a sizeable fortune and started a wholesale grocery business. In Milwaukee Armour formed business partnerships with Frederick Miles in the grain business and with John Plankinton in the meatpacking industry. With his brother, Herman, he entered the grain business and built several meat packing plants in the Menomonee River Valley. Together they formed Armour and Company in 1867, which soon became the world's largest food processing and chemical manufacturing enterprise, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Armour & Co. was the first company to produce canned meat and also one of the first to employ an "assembly-line" technique in its factories. In order to get his meat products to market Armour followed the lead of rival Gustavus Swift when he established the Armour Refrigerator Line in 1883. Armour's endeavor soon became the largest private refrigerator car fleet in the U.S., which by 1900 listed over 12,000 units on its roster, all built in Armour's own car plant. The General American Transportation Corporation would assume ownership of the line in 1932. His meat packing plants pioneered new principles of large-scale organization and refrigeration to the industry. Armour was one of the first to take action to reduce the tremendous waste inherent in the slaughtering of hogs and to take advantage of the resale value of what had been waste products. It was reported that the company used every possible part of the animals to make products other than canned meat, such as fertilizer, glue and pepsin. Armour famously declared that he made use of "everything but the squeal". The company's reputation was tarnished by the scandal of 1898–99 in which it was charged with selling tainted beef. This event provided fodder for the muckraking novel by Upton Sinclair entitled The Jungle, which was published in February 1906 and became a bestseller. In 1893, Armour donated $1 million to found the Armour Institute of Technology (a privately endowed coeducational college), which merged with the Lewis Institute to become the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1940. He also created the Armour Mission, an educational and healthcare center. Armour died on January 6, 1901 of pneumonia at his Chicago home. He was survived by his wife, Malvina Belle Ogden whom he had married in 1862, and by one son, the other having died about a year before. The town of Armour, South Dakota was named for him in 1885. A street in the Milwaukee suburb of Cudahy, Wisconsin (founded by meat packing magnate Patrick Cudahy) also bears his name.
References
- White, John H. (1986). The Great Yellow Fleet. Golden West Books, San Marino, California. ISBN 0-87095-091-6.
Further reading
- Lowe, David Garrard (2000), Lost Chicago. Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, NY. ISBN 0-8230-2871-2.
- Leech, Harper and John Charles Carroll (1938), Armour and His Times, D. Appelton-Century Company, New York and London.
- Gunsaulus, Frank W. Philip D. Armour, A Character Sketch.
- Depew, Chauncey M. 'Philip D. Armour, "The Pig Industry"' in 100 Years of American Commerce, 1895.
See also
External links
- Armour Square Park of the Chicago Park District
- History of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)
- Biographical sketch for Philip Armour on PBS American Experience
- Profile page for Philip Armour on Find A Grave
| Preceded by ' |
President of Armour and Company 1867–1901 |
Succeeded by J. Ogden Armour |
