Henry J. Heinz
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Henry John Heinz (October 11, 1844<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> – May 14, 1919) was an American entrepreneur who co-founded the H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He was involved in the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Many of his descendants are known for philanthropy and involvement in politics and public affairs. His fortune became the basis for the Heinz Foundations.
Early lifeEdit
Henry John Heinz was born in Birmingham, Pennsylvania, to John Henry Heinz (1811–1891) and Anna Margaretha Schmidt (1822–1899). John Henry was born Johann Heinrich Heinz to parents Johann Georg and Charlotte Louisa (née Trump) Heinz in Kallstadt of the Palatinate, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1840, John Henry emigrated to Birmingham, where he got a job making bricks and then met and married Anna in 1843, who herself had recently emigrated from Template:Interlanguage link (today a part of Haunetal), Hesse-Kassel.<ref name="Skrabec, 2009">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="McCafferty, 1923" /> Then when Henry was five years old, his parents moved to Sharpsburg where Henry’s father went into the brick making business for himself. Anna Schmidt was the daughter of a farmer and church administrator, Johann Adam Schmidt, and his wife Dorothea (Thiel) Schmidt.Template:Efn Anna came from Hesse-Kassel, which was a Reformed Protestant (Calvinist) territory, so she was raised in the Calvinist Christian faith.<ref name="Pettegree, 2000">Template:Cite book</ref> Anna's husband, John Heinz, was a Lutheran, and they raised and confirmed their son to that faith.<ref name="Skrabec, 2009" /><ref name="McCafferty, 1923">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
H. J. Heinz CompanyEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Henry John Heinz began packing foodstuffs on a small scale at Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1869. There, he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend, L. Clarence Noble, and started marketing bottled horseradish, soon followed by sauerkraut, vinegar, and pickles. The company became bankrupt in 1875. The following year, Heinz founded another company, F & J Heinz, with his brother John Heinz and a cousin, Frederick Heinz.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The company continued to grow and, in 1888, Heinz bought out his other two partners and reorganized it as the H. J. Heinz Company, the name carried to the present day. The company's slogan, "57 varieties," was introduced by Heinz in 1896; by then, the company was selling more than 60 different products.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Heinz said he chose "5" because it was his lucky number; the number "7" was his wife's lucky number.<ref name="Rawsthorn09">Template:Cite news</ref>
The H. J. Heinz Company was incorporated in 1905 with Heinz serving as its first president, retaining that position for the rest of his life.<ref name=":0" /> At the time of Heinz's death in Pittsburgh at the age of 74, the H. J. Heinz Company had more than 20 food processing plants and owned seed farms and container factories.Template:Citation needed
Later lifeEdit
Heinz led a successful lobbying effort in favor of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> During World War I, he worked with the Food Administration.<ref name="colliers">Template:Cite Collier's</ref> He was a director in many financial institutions, and was chairman of a committee to devise ways of protecting Pittsburgh from floods.<ref name="colliers" />
Marriage and familyEdit
Heinz married Sarah Sloan Young on September 3, 1869.<ref name="Skrabec, 2009" /> She was of Scots-Irish ancestry and had grown up in the Presbyterian Church. They had five children:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Irene Edwilda Heinz-Given (1871–1956)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Clarence Henry Heinz (1873–1920)<ref name="McCafferty, 1923" />
- Howard Covode Heinz (1877–1941)
- Robert Eugene Heinz (1882–1882, lived about 1 month)<ref name="McCafferty, 1923" />
- Clifford Sloan Heinz (1883–1935)
They were raised as Presbyterians.
Religious faithEdit
Later in life Heinz worshipped as a member of Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and worked closely with Baptists as well.<ref name="Skrabec, 2009" />
When Heinz visited England, his "tourist stops" included the graves of religious leaders John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, and John Wesley. He visited a chapel that Wesley founded, later writing that "I felt I was upon holy ground."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> At the beginning of his will Heinz wrote: "I desire to set forth, at the very beginning of this Will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Death and legacyEdit
Heinz died at his home on May 14, 1919, after contracting pneumonia. His funeral was at East Liberty Presbyterian Church. He was buried at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh, in the Heinz Family Mausoleum.<ref name="Skrabec, 2009" /><ref name="McCafferty, 1923" /><ref>Template:Usurped</ref>
A bronze statue of Heinz by Emil Fuchs was dedicated on October 11, 1924, at the Heinz Company building in Pittsburgh.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Heinz is the grandfather of H. J. Heinz II (1908–1987) the great-grandfather of U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III (1938–1991) of Pennsylvania (who was later buried in the same family mausoleum), and great-great grandfather of Henry John Heinz IV, André Thierstein Heinz and Christopher Drake Heinz.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Through his paternal grandmother, Charlotte Louisa Trump, he was a second cousin of Friedrich Trump, second cousin (once removed) of real estate magnate Fred Trump, and second cousin (twice removed) of 45th & 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- "Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth Century: Making Markets for Processed Food" by Nancy Koehn. The Business History Review, Vol. 73 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 349–393. Template:JSTOR, reprinted in Koehn, Nancy F. Koehn, Brand New : How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell (2001) pp 43–90.
External linksEdit
Template:Heinz Template:The Kraft Heinz Company Template:Authority control