Edward Reilly Stettinius (February 15, 1865 – September 3, 1925) was an American executive. He was president of Diamond Match Company in Barberton, Ohio, for a time. After the start of World War I, he worked at

J. P. Morgan and Company J.P. Morgan & Co. is a Commercial banking, commercial and investment banking institution founded by J. P. Morgan in 1871. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the company is now a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest bankin ...

coordinating the purchase of war supplies for the Allies. When the United States entered the war, he went to work in its War Department.

Biography

Stettinius was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a wholesale grocer. He was educated at

St. Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...

. The needs of his family obligated him to drop out of school at age 16, and he went to work for a grocery firm and then a hat and cap firm. He then tried several lines of business on his own account, but was not very successful, and went to work in a banking firm. By 1891, both his mother and father had died, and he went to the commodity exchange at the

Chicago Board of Trade The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), established on April 3, 1848, is one of the world's oldest futures and options exchanges. On July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group. CBOT and three other excha ...

, but did not find that he could satisfactorily predict the price of wheat and left to become treasurer in the Stirling Boiler Company. The business

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 ...

obligated him to add several other tasks to the one of treasurer. As conditions improved, he began to work in sales, doing well enough that he became general manager of the company. His participation in the merger of that company and several others in the same line to form Babcock & Wilcox helped his reputation, and he was recruited to work at Diamond Match Company, where he became president in 1909. His employer at Stirling was

O. C. Barber Ohio Columbus Barber (April 20, 1841 – February 4, 1920) was an American businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. He was called "America's Match King" because of his controlling interest in the Diamond Match Company, which had 85 percent ...

, who also used his influence to make him president at Diamond Match, where Stettinius succeeded him. At the beginning of World War I, Stettinius went to work as a partner for

where he worked as chief buyer of war supplies for the Allies, overseeing a work force of around 150 people. When the United States entered the war, he went to work for the War Department, in charge of procurement and production of supplies for the Army. On April 6, 1918, he became Assistant Secretary of War. He received the Distinguished Service Medal from the War Department in recognition of his service. After the war, he went back to work for Morgan and Company, devoting his attention to restructuring large companies. He died at Locust Valley, New York on September 3, 1925.

Family

He married Judith Carrington of

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. They had four children, among them Stettinius's namesake,

Edward Stettinius Jr. Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr. (October 22, 1900 – October 31, 1949) was an American businessman who served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman from 1944 to 1945, and as U.S. Ambassador ...

, who also worked as a business executive, and was Secretary of State for a time. In 1928, Edward's daughter Elizabeth "Betty" married Juan Trippe , founder of Pan Am Airlines.

Notes

References

* This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: {{DEFAULTSORT:Stettinius, Edward 1865 births 1925 deaths Businesspeople from St. Louis Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army) Civilian recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (United States)

Biography

Family

Notes

Further reading

References