Harry Frank Guggenheim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Harry F. Guggenheim | |
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| Born | August 23, 1890 West End, New Jersey, U.S. |
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| Died | January 22, 1971 New York, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Businessman: Mining Newspaper publishing Statesman Racehorse owner/breeder Philanthropist |
Harry Frank Guggenheim (August 23, 1890 - January 22, 1971) was a United States businessman, diplomat, publisher, philanthropist, and horseman.
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[edit] Birth
He was born August 23, 1890 in West End, New Jersey to Florence and Daniel Guggenheim (1856-1930).
[edit] Education
He graduated in 1907 from the Columbia Grammar School in Manhattan, and then attended the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. He later left Yale and served a three-year apprenticeship in the mines and metallurgical plants of the American Smelting and Refining Company in Mexico, which was owned by the Guggenheim family. He resumed his education in 1910 at England's Pembroke College at Cambridge University, receiving his B.A. in 1913 and an M.A. from Cambridge also in 1913.
[edit] Copper
From 1913 to 1923, Guggenheim was an officer and director of several copper companies, including executive director of the Chile Copper Company, which owned the world's largest copper deposit.
[edit] World War I & II
In March of 1917, as the United States moved toward involvement in World War I, Guggenheim bought a Curtiss Flying Boat and took piloting lessons. By May of 1917 he had started a naval aviation unit at Manhasset, New York. In September of 1917, he earned a commission as a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Navy Reserve and then served overseas in France, England and Italy until the end of the war. He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander but following the United States entrance into World War II, Guggenheim rejoined and served with the United States naval aviation forces from 1942 to 1945.
[edit] Guggenheim Foundation
In 1924, his parents established the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation and Harry was made a director and later president. Under his leadership, the foundation sponsored the research of Robert Goddard.
[edit] Guggenheim School of Aeronautics
He provided funds for the establishment of the first Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at New York University in 1925. He became president of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics a year later. This fund, totaling $3 million, included an equipment loan for operating the first regularly scheduled commercial airline in the United States. It also provided for the establishment of the first weather reporting exclusively for passenger airplanes.
[edit] Cuba
He was the United States ambassador to Cuba from 1929 until his resignation in 1933.
| Preceded by Noble Brandon Judah |
United States Ambassador to Cuba 1929-1933 |
Succeeded by Sumner Welles |
[edit] National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics
In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed Guggenheim to serve on the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics, a position that he held until 1938. In 1948, as president of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, he continued to support United States aviation progress when he helped organize the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center at the California Institute of Technology and the Guggenheim Laboratories for Aerospace Propulsion Sciences at Princeton University.
[edit] Newsday
Guggenheim, with his third wife, Alicia Patterson, established Newsday in 1940. Guggenheim was President of the company, while his wife was editor and publisher until her death in 1963, then he assumed those duties until 1967, when he relinquished the duties of editor and publisher. He continued as president and editor-in-chief until his retirement in May of 1970. Under his guidance, the circulation of Newsday reached 450,000 and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
[edit] Thoroughbred horse racing
Harry Guggenheim was a participant in the founding of the New York Racing Association. From 1929 he was a major Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder. His Cain Hoy Stable raced in the United States and was the owner of numerous successful horses including the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner, Dark Star. Also he was the breeder and owner (until Harry's death) of Ack Ack who is in the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame and was in 1971 Horse of the Year.
[edit] Death
Harry Frank Guggenheim died of cancer on January 22, 1971 at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City. He was buried in the Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
[edit] External links
- Falaise - home of Henry Guggenheim. Retrieved on 2006-06-03.
