James Athearn Folger (1835 - 1889)

Businessman. Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Brown Folger and Nancy Hill, the second youngest to nine children. At the age of 14, James and his brothers Henry and Edward headed for California in search for gold. James remained in San Francisco to work for his travel costs while his older brothers proceeded […]

Anthony “Tony” Fokker (1890 - 1939)

Anthony “Tony” Fokker was a player in the early aviation warfare. He began his own aircraft building company in 1912 named Fokker Aviatik. After WWI broke out, his company became a prominent builder of German combat airplanes. After WWI, Fokker moved from his native Holland to the United States. He continued his Fokker Aircraft company […]

Friedrich Karl Flick (1927 - 2006)

Industrialist. He graduated in business economics from the University of Munich in 1957 and joined his father’s Flick Enterprises. He was named head of the business in 1975, building the Flick Group’s stakes in Daimler-Benz, Feldmuhle, Dynamit Nobel and other automotive, paper and chemical ventures, into a worldwide conglomerate. He was believed to be Austria’s […]

Charles Louis Fleischmann (1835 - 1897)

Yeast Manufacturer. A native of Budapest, Hungary, he was educated in Vienna and Prague before emigrating to America in 1866. Along with his brother and another business partner, he produced and sold compressed yeast and distilled spirits. The Fleischmann Yeast Company eventually became the world’s leading yeast producer and the second largest in the production […]

Sir John Fleet (1970 - 1712)

Governor of the East India Company, and President of St.Batholomew’s Hospital. MP and Lord Mayor of London in 1693. (bio by: David Conway)

James “Big Jim” Fisk (1835 - 1872)

Financier. One of the most prominent bankers and money men of the post-Civil War era, he teamed with fellow financier Jay Gould to corner the New York City, New York gold market in 1869. This attempt to consolidate the wealth in the hands of the two men resulted in the Financial Panic of 1869 (called […]

Max Fisher (1908 - 2005)

Oil and real estate magnate. Presidential advisor.  Family links:  Parents:  William Fisher (1888 – 1971)  Molly Brody Fisher (1888 – 1969)  Spouses:  Sylvia Krell Fisher (1910 – 1952)*  Marjorie Switow Fisher (1923 – 2016)*  Siblings:  Max Fisher (1908 – 2005)  Gail Fisher Ross (1910 – 1996)*  Anne Fisher Rose (1917 – 2005)* *Calculated relationship

Stuyvesant Fish (1851 - 1923)

Business Magnate.  Born the son of Hamilton Fish into a prominent New York family,  he was president of the Illinois Central Railroad from 1887 to 1906, its period of greatest expansion. In 1906, after a long legal battle, he was ousted by E. H. Harriman and promptly joined up with the competition, in this case, […]

Harvey S. Firestone, Jr (1898 - 1973)

Businessman. Son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Comoany, he served the company for half a century. As chief executive officer from 1946 until 1963, he saw Firestone’s sales doubled to $1.3 billion, with 121 plants and facilities in 29 countries. He was the author of “Man On The Move: The Story […]

Harvey Samuel Firestone (1868 - 1938)

American industrialist and inventor, best known for his pioneering work in the development of pneumatic car and truck tires and as founder of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. He was born Harvey Samuel Firestone in the small town of Columbiana, Ohio on December 20, 1868, the son of a prosperous farmer. Harvey Firestone had […]

William Wood Finney (1829 - 1910)

Pony Express Co-Founder, Civil War Confederate Army Officer. Born at “Prospect Hill.” Graduated Virginia Military Institute. Served as assistant principal of Warrenton Male Academy in North Carolina until 1850 when he went west for gold. He took up engineering and surveyed for the railroad in Vera Cruz, Mexico. In 1858 he returned to the United […]

Albert Fink (1827 - 1897)

Railroad engineer and operator, generally regarded as the “Father of Railway Economics and Statistics” in the United States; he was also known as the “Teutonic Giant” because he was 6′ 7″ tall. He was educated at private and polytechnic schools at Darmstadt, Germany, he graduated in engineering and architecture in 1848.  Unsympathetic with the forces […]

Marshall Field, III (1893 - 1956)

Businessman, Newspaper Publisher. He was the grandson and heir of Marshall Field, who founded the Chicago, Illinois-based Marshall Field and Company department stores. He was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 28, 1963 to Marshall Field, Jr. and Albertine Huck Field, and was raised primarily in England where he received his education at Eton College […]

Cyrus West Field (1819 - 1892)

Businessman. He was a entrepreneur, most noted as a pioneer in the telegraph industry. In the early 1850s, he was successful in the paper mill business when became interested in the telegraph field. With his civil engineer brother Matthew and Frederick Newton Gisborne, they worked on the project of for a telegraph across to Newfoundland […]

Frank W. Feuerbacher (1850 - 1928)

Native St. Louisan Feuerbacher decided to enter the brewing & malting industry after high school graduation. He served his apprenticeship in Cincinnati & Milwaukee. He returned to St. Louis in 1880 & founded a malt house under the firm name of Frank W. Feuerbacher & Co., which did an extensive business throughout the country. He […]

Ruth Fertel (1927 - 2002)

Founder of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. (bio by: Joel Berry)

Sereno Peck Fenn (1844 - 1927)

Paint magnate. One of three principal founders of the Sherwin-Williams Company.

Charles Feltman (1841 - 1910)

Businessman. A German immigrant, he was a catalyst in the development of Brooklyn, New York City’s Coney Island as an entertainment resort and an amusement park. Among his enduring innovations was the creation of the classic American “hot dog”, as he was the first to sell the popular sausages on a bun.

Christian William Feigenspan (1876 - 1939)

Businessman. He took over Newark, New Jersey’s Feigenspan Brewery Company, founded by his father in 1868, when his father died in 1899. He then transformed the company into one of the best known breweries up until and after prohibition. Today it’s labels are the among the most sought after by collectors.

Theodore S. Faxton (1784 - 1881)

Businessman. He was a pioneer entrepreneur of stagecoach and telegraph lines. Born in Conway, Massachusetts, it was in the Utica, New York area in 1812 where he obtained a position as a stage driver quickly gaining respect for his teamster abilities along the old Mohawk Turnpike. Theodore soon became one of the proprietors of the […]

Robert “Bob” Farrell (1927 - 2015)

American Author, Motivational Speaker and Founder of Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlors. After serving in the Air Force during World War II, Farrell worked as a salesman for Libby Foods, where he began breaking sales records with his creative marketing and received a series of job promotions to become regional sales manager. He left the company […]

William Stamps Farish, II (1881 - 1942)

Businessman. Son of William and Katherine Maude Farish and husband of Libbie Randon Rice, he practiced law for three months at Clarksdale, Mississippi before moving to Beaumont, Texas during the Spindletop oilfield boom. One of several oilmen who founded the Humble Oil and Refining Company in 1917 (the others being Ross Sterling, R.L. Blaffer and […]

Peter Faneuil (1700 - 1743)

Colonial Merchant. He was the son and nephew of wealthy French Huguenots who fled France in the late 1600s and settled in Massachusetts. Little is known of his childhood and his well-to-do father died when he was 18 years old. He first came into prominence when he helped his brother-in-law escape to France after killing […]

Sherman Mills Fairchild (1896 - 1971)

Industrialist and inventor. Among Fairchild’s inventionas are aerial mapping photography, the flight analyzer camera and an automatic photoengraver. Fairchild also designed the first plane to have a closed a cockpit and a plane that could be loaded by rear-facing doors. Fairchild was born into wealth, his father was an IBM founder who built a $200 […]

Thaddeus Fairbanks (1796 - 1886)

Inventor,  Businessman. In 1823 he built a foundry in St. Johnsbury to manufacture two of his inventions, a plow and a stove made from cast iron. In 1824 his brother Erastus joined the business, which they named E & T Fairbanks Company, an enterprise that later included their brother Joseph as a partner. In 1830 […]

Sidney B. Factor (1916 - 2005)

Businessman. Son of Max Factor Sr., he helped build the cosmetics firm his father founded into the internationally market known as Max Factor & Company. Through the 1950s, he expanded the company into Canada, Australia, Japan, Latin America and South America. He retired in 1962 as executive vice president in charge of international markets, with […]

Max Factor (1877 - 1938)

Businessman. Legendary makeup magnate.  Family links:  Spouses:  Esther Rosa Factor (1874 – 1906)*  Jennie Cook Factor (1886 – 1949)*  Children:  John Jacob Factor (1892 – 1984)*  Francis Factor (1904 – 1996)*  Sidney B. Factor (1916 – 2005)* *Calculated relationship

Francis Factor (1904 - 1996)

Businessman. Son of Hollywood Make-up pioneer Max Factor, Sr. He took over the business when his father died in 1938.  Family links:  Parents:  Max Factor (1877 – 1938)  Esther Rosa Factor (1874 – 1906)  Siblings:  John Jacob Factor (1892 – 1984)**  Francis Factor (1904 – 1996)  Sidney B. Factor (1916 – 2005)** *Calculated relationship**Half-sibling

Carl Peter Fabergé (1846 - 1920)

Jeweler. He and his company were responsible for the world renown jewel-encrusted “Faberge Eggs”, which became synonymous with the extravagance of Imperial Russia. His father was a descendant of French Protestants who fled after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 and settled in Russia and his mother was Danish. He was education in […]

Eberhard Faber (1822 - 1879)

Businessman. Born into a family who had been in the pencil-making business since 1761, he moved to New York City in 1848 and opened his first pencil factory on 42nd Street near the East River, which was destroyed in a fire in 1872, then he built a bigger factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Faber was the […]