Samuel Simeon Fels (February 16, 1860 in
Yanceyville, North Carolina
Yanceyville is a town in and the county seat of Caswell County, North Carolina, United States. Located in the Piedmont Triad region of the state, the town had a population of 1,937 at the 2020 census.
The settlement was founded in 1792 and was ...
– June 23, 1950 in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
) was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Biography
Born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Yanceyville, North Carolina
Yanceyville is a town in and the county seat of Caswell County, North Carolina, United States. Located in the Piedmont Triad region of the state, the town had a population of 1,937 at the 2020 census.
The settlement was founded in 1792 and was ...
, Fels family relocated to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, where Samuel's older brother
Joseph Fels
Joseph Fels (16 December 1853–22 February 1914) was an American soap manufacturer, millionaire, Georgist and philanthropist.
Biography
Born of German Jewish immigrants in Halifax County, Virginia, Fels moved with his family to Baltimore i ...
founded a soap manufacturing company, Fels & Co., which found success with the product
Fels-Naptha
Fels-Naptha is an American brand of laundry soap manufactured by Summit Brands. The soap was originally created in 1893 by Fels and Company.
It originally included the ingredient naphtha, effective for cleaning laundry and urushiol, an oil cont ...
. Samuel became the company's first president, a post he held until his death at age 90.
Philanthropy
An active philanthropist, in 1936, Fels established the Samuel S. Fels Fund, which provides support to Philadelphia-area non-profit organizations. Fels also founded the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
’s
Fels Institute of Government
The Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania is a graduate school of public policy and Public administration, public management. Founded in 1937 by Samuel Simeon Fels of the Fels-Naptha, Fels Naptha Soap Company, the Fel Inst ...
.
Fels is known for commissioning
Samuel Barber's
Violin Concerto Op. 14 in 1939.
In 1912,
Henry H. Goddard dedicated his book on eugenics ''
The Kallikak Family'' to Fels: "who made this study and who has followed the work from its incipiency with kindly criticism and advice".
References
External links
Fels Institute of Government, University of PennsylvaniaThe Fels Planetarium at The Franklin InstituteThe Samuel S. Fels FundIso Briselli, the adopted son of Samuel S. Fels*
*Th
including correspondence, records and other materials, are available for research use at the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fels, Samuel Simeon
1860 births
1950 deaths
American philanthropists
Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni
University of Pennsylvania people
People from Yanceyville, North Carolina
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
American business executives
American people of German-Jewish descent
American eugenicists