George Newell Armsby (August 10, 1876 – October 25, 1942) was an American entrepreneur, most noted for his drive toward corporate mergers in the first half of the 20th century: first the merger of California food companies that resulted in

California Packing Corporation George Newell Armsby (August 10, 1876 – October 25, 1942) was an American entrepreneur, most noted for his drive toward corporate mergers in the first half of the 20th century: first the merger of California food companies that resulted in Calif ...

, which sold under the Del Monte and Sunkist labels. Armsby was on the board of numerous corporations, including

Curtiss-Wright The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation of Curtiss, Wright, and v ...

(where he served as Chairman),

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

, Bancamerica-Blair, and many others. He was associated throughout his business life with John Cheever Cowdin, with whom he ran Universal Pictures; they were also both involved in the formation of Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., which was later a foundation of

TWA Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with ...

Early life

Armsby was born in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...

, on August 10, 1876, a son of food-packing entrepreneur James K. Armsby. His younger sister was golfer Cornelia Wicker Armsby. He went to work for his father's concern, J.K. Armsby Co., and on December 28, 1898, he married Leonora Wood, daughter of Colorado mining entrepreneur Tingley Sylvanus Wood.

California Packing Corporation

In the mid-1910s he conceived a plan to unite California's food-packing companies under a single association, and he went to New York to secure the $16,000,000 in financing necessary to do it. Blair & Co. and William Salomon & Co. lent him the funds, and

was founded.

Blair-Salomon

After serving on the Priorities Commission of the

War Industries Board The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department (Department of the Army) and the Navy Department. Because ...

, her persuaded his two lenders on the CalPack deal to merge and he went to work for the new concern, Blair & Co., Inc. In time, the new enterprise was bought by Transamerica, and Armsby found himself working under his friend and fellow fruit-grower

Amadeo Giannini Amadeo Pietro Giannini (), also known as Amadeo Peter Giannini or A. P. Giannini (May 6, 1870 – June 3, 1949) was an American banker who founded the Bank of Italy, which became Bank of America. Giannini is credited as the inventor of many modern ...

. In time, this link would prove crucial to Armsby's next venture.

Bank of America-Blair

After playing a role in the construction of

40 Wall Street 40 Wall Street, also known as the Trump Building, is a Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic skyscraper on Wall Street between Nassau Street (Manhattan), Nassau and William Street (Manhattan), William streets in the Financial District, Manh ...

, for a time the world's tallest building and now The Trump Building, Armsby and Cowdin persuaded A. P. Gianninis

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

to merge with Blair, which became - in 1931, in the depths of the Great Depression - a major force on Wall Street.

McKesson & Robbins

In January 1940, Armsby headed the committee representing the $3 cumulative preference stock class of McKesson & Robbins, Inc., asking views on the development of a reorganization plan.

Personal life

As his business ventures soared, Armsby's personal life was no less colorful. His marriage to Leonora disintegrated, and in March 1929 she sued for and was granted a divorce in the San Francisco courts, alleging (as was common at the time with unhappy spouses) that Armsby had abandoned her in New York in 1924. The subsequent divorce settlement of $1,000,000 made the papers as far away as Helena, Montana. Notably, Leonora retained the Armsby name until her death in 1962. Armsby's personal life made the papers next year when, in March 1930, he announced that he was marrying, at age 54, a 36-year-old woman, Colette Touzeau, whom ''

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 d ...

'' and other papers tartly (if apparently accurately) called an ex-

showgirl A showgirl is a female dancer or performer in a stage entertainment show intended to showcase the performer's physical attributes, typically by way of revealing clothing, toplessness, or nudity. History Showgirls date back to the late 180 ...

. They did marry that month, in Los Angeles, and remained together until Armsby's death twelve years later.

Later years

Armsby's business life showed no sign of slowdown as he went into the 1940s. He remained involved with Curtiss-Wright and Universal Pictures, in fact was a defendant in an anti-trust case against the movie industry in the late 1930s. He died in Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital on October 25, 1942, aged 66.

References

Sources

*"Matron of Society Sheds Her Hubby". '' The Helena Independent'', March 3, 1929. *"Armsby Weds Wednesday". ''

'', March 23, 1930, page N7. * * *Obituary, ''The New York Times'', September 26, 1942. *Obituary, ''The New York Times'', September 27, 1942. {{DEFAULTSORT:Armsby, George Newell American food industry business executives Businesspeople from Evanston, Illinois 1876 births 1942 deaths