Edwin Tobias Earl (May 30, 1858 – January 2, 1919) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher and philanthropist.

Biography

Early life

Edwin T. Earl was born on a fruit ranch near

Red Bluff, California Red Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 14,710 at the 2020 census, up from 14,076 at the 2010 census. It is located north of Sacramento, south of Redding, and it is bisect ...

on May 30, 1858.'Edwin T. Earl Dies in South', ''Sausalito News'', Volume 35, Number 2, 11 January 191

/ref> His father was Joseph Earl and his mother, Adelia Chaffee. His brother was Guy Chaffee Earl.

Career

He started his career in the shipping of fruits. By 1886, he was President of the Earl Fruit Company. In 1890, he invented the

refrigerator car A refrigerator car (or "reefer") is a refrigerated boxcar (U.S.), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars (co ...

to transport fruits to the East Coast of the United States. He established the Continental Fruit Express and invested US$2,000,000 in refrigerator cars. In 1901, he sold his refrigerator cars to

Armour and Company Armour & Company was an American company and was one of the five leading firms in the meat packing industry. It was founded in Chicago, in 1867, by the Armour brothers led by Philip Danforth Armour. By 1880, the company had become Chicago's most ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and became a millionaire. In 1901, he purchased the '' Los Angeles Express'' and became its editor.Kevin Starr
''Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era''
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 241 Ten years later, in 1911, he also purchased the '' Los Angeles Tribune''. He also invested in real estate in Los Angeles. He was a Freemason, a member of the California Club and the

Jonathan Club __NOTOC__ Jonathan Club is a social club with two California locations—one in Downtown Los Angeles and the other abutting the beach in Santa Monica. The club is routinely ranked as one of the top clubs in the world by Platinum Clubs of Amer ...

, two private member's clubs in Los Angeles, and the Bolsa Chica Gun Club. He was a member of the

California Republican Party The California Republican Party (CAGOP) is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in the U.S. state of California. The party is based in Sacramento and is led by chair Jessica Millan Patterson. As of October 2020, Republicans repre ...

Philanthropy

In 1901, he made a donation to the

Pacific School of Religion The Pacific School of Religion (PSR) is a private Protestant seminary in Berkeley, California. It maintains covenantal relationships with the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the Disciples of Christ, ensuring the schoo ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

to start the

Earl Lectures The Earl Lectures are a series of public lectures on religion held at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1901, they are supported by an endowment of Edwin T. Earl. They are open to members of the general public, a ...

. For more than a hundred years, it has featured distinguished guest speakers like

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

Harry Emerson Fosdick Harry Emerson Fosdick (May 24, 1878 – October 5, 1969) was an American pastor. Fosdick became a central figure in the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominen ...

and Cecil Williams.

Personal life

He married Emily Jarvis Earl of

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

on April 30, 1902. They had three sons, Jarvis, Edwin (1905–1981) and Chaffee, and one daughter, Emily. They resided in Los Angeles, California. He died on January 2, 1919, in Los Angeles.

References

US Patent and Trademark Office, Patent #: US0RE011324

External links

Huntington Digital Library: Photograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Earl, Edwin T. 1858 births 1919 deaths People from Red Bluff, California People from Los Angeles American Freemasons American newspaper publishers (people) California Republicans Journalists from California 19th-century American philanthropists 19th-century American businesspeople