Charles Albert Coffin (December 31, 1844 – July 14, 1926) was an American businessman who was the co-founder and first president of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...

corporation.

Early life

He was born in

Fairfield, Maine Fairfield is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 6,484 at the 2020 census. The town includes Fairfield Center, Fairfield village and Hinckley, and borders the city of Waterville to the south. It is home to the ...

, the son of Albert Coffin and his wife Anstrus (Varney). He married Caroline Russell of

Holbrook, Massachusetts Holbrook is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. , the town's population was 11,405. History Holbrook was first settled by Europeans (mostly British colonists) in 1710 as the southern part of Old Braintree, and was offic ...

, and had three children.

Career

At age 18, he moved to

Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...

, to join his uncle Charles E. Coffin and his shoe company, at which he spent the next twenty years. Eventually he established his own shoe factory named Coffin and Clough in Lynn.Charles A. Coffin
In 1883, he was approached by another Lynn businessman, Silas A. Barton, to bring to town a struggling electric company from

New Britain, Connecticut New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately southwest of Hartford. According to 2020 Census, the population of the city is 74,135. Among the southernmost of the communities encompassed wi ...

, finance it and lead it. With the engineering work of

Elihu Thomson Elihu Thomson (March 29, 1853 – March 13, 1937) was an English-born American engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Early life He was bor ...

and Edwin J. Houston, Coffin was able to build up the company, renamed

Thomson-Houston Electric Company The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric company. History The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1882 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massa ...

, to be an equal to

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

's companies. Under Coffin, Thomson-Houston deployed power plants in the South, including two in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital city, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County, the mos ...

, to run the electric lighting and in 1889,

Joel Hurt Joel Hurt (1850–1926) was an American businessman. He was the president of Trust Company of Georgia, and a developer in Atlanta. He was one of the many founders of SunTrust Bank. Early life Hurt was born on July 31, 1850, in Hurtsboro, Ala ...

's electric streetcar line. When

was formed from Thomson-Houston and Edison's companies, Coffin was its first

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

. The company was tested quickly during the

Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the pres ...

, where Coffin negotiated with New York banks to advance money in exchange for GE-owned utility stocks. He established a

duopoly A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...

of important electric patents with

Westinghouse Electric The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...

in the late 1890s, and in 1901 established a research laboratory for the company. Suggested by

Charles Proteus Steinmetz Charles Proteus Steinmetz (born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz, April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was a German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College. He fostered the development of alternati ...

, this was the first industrial research lab in the US. He supported GE engineers in the adaptation and development of the

Curtis steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

, which advanced electric power generation. He retired from the board in 1922, and retained a large amount of GE stock. Upon his death in 1926, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Early life

Career

References

Further reading