Alexander McCormick Sturm (June 23, 1923 – November 16, 1951) was an American artist, author, and entrepreneur who co-founded in 1949 the American firearms maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. Sturm provided the start-up money and designed the Germanic

heraldic Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branc ...

eagle found on all Ruger guns. Sturm came from a prominent

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

family, and his wealthy mother was of the McCormick mercantile family. He was a

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

graduate. Not long after the company had begun to succeed financially and gain traction, Sturm died from

viral hepatitis Viral hepatitis is liver inflammation due to a viral infection. It may present in acute form as a recent infection with relatively rapid onset, or in chronic form. The most common causes of viral hepatitis are the five unrelated hepatotropic v ...

Early life and education

Sturm was born in

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

, to sculptor, author and Yale football star Justin Sturm and Katherine "Kit" McCormick. He had one younger brother, Justin Jr., known as "Dusty". Kit's brother Alexander Agnew McCormick Jr. was a World War I officer and pilot."Justin Sturm, Sculptor and Author, Dies," ''Chicago Tribune,'' August 8, 1967. As a writer and artist, he was known for his two illustrated

children's books A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...

—''The Problem Fox'', and ''From Ambush to Zig-zag''—both published before he graduated from Yale; and for his lavish playboy lifestyle. A reviewer for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described ''The Problem Fox'' as "marvelous", and "a little masterpiece." While a student at Yale, Sturm liked to dine at the best hotel in town, while other students would eat at the school dining hall. One of his classmates from his

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

days at Yale recalled:Although Sturm preferred to stay indoors, he was an accomplished

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

player.

Co-founds ''Sturm, Ruger & Co.''

He is perhaps best known today for his $50,000 seed-money investment in co-founding Sturm, Ruger & Co. in 1949 prompted by his interest in guns and his friendship with William Batterman Ruger. Ruger provided the technical know-how as a

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...

, and business acumen; Sturm provided the Germanic heraldic-based red eagle logo and all of the financial backing necessary for starting the fledgling firearms business. Ruger once stated,

Marriage

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Sturm was an officer with the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

in Washington D.C. While in D.C., he met Paulina Longworth, the daughter of

Alice Roosevelt Longworth Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Lo ...

. Sturm and Longworth married in 1944, with his brother Dusty serving as best man. They had one daughter, Joanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm, born in 1946. Longworth had helped launch Sturm, Ruger & Co., stuffing envelopes with Sturm on Sunday afternoons, and giving moral support to the two partners. The couple lived in Sturm's home in Westport, which was situated near his parents' house on property the family owned.

Death

Sturm became seriously ill in 1951 with

and died after a ten-day stay in the hospital. He was 28 years old. The Sturm, Ruger trademark, which had been a red eagle, was changed to a black eagle by his friend Bill Ruger to mourn the death of his business partner. Sturm's wife died in January 1957, at the age of 31, from an overdose of

sleeping pills Hypnotic (from Greek ''Hypnos'', sleep), or soporific drugs, commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of (and umbrella term for) psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to induce sleep (or surgical anesthesiaWhen used in anesthesia ...

. Their daughter was raised by Paulina's mother,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sturm, Alexander Mccormick 1923 births 1951 deaths People from Westport, Connecticut Businesspeople from Connecticut Writers from Connecticut American manufacturing businesspeople American children's writers Bulloch family Roosevelt family 20th-century American male writers Deaths from hepatitis McCormick family