William Procter (1801 - 1884)

Manufacturer. Co-Founder of the Procter and Gamble Company. A native of England, he was born in Herefordshire and educated at the Luckston School. Procter entered into business in 1818 and was connected with the clothing industry in London in the late 1820’s. In 1827, he became acquainted with William Hooper, who urged him to emigrate […]

William Ramsay (1868 - 1914)

Inventor, Manufacturer. In 1906 this native Australian invented Kiwi Boot Polish. “Kiwi”, the national bird of New Zealand was chosen as the brand name to honor his New Zealander wife, Ann Elizabeth Meek Ramsay. He began his business by loading his horsedrawn wagon with his polish and selling it door to door to farmers throughout […]

William Randolph Hearst Sr (1863 - 1951)

William Randolph Hearst Sr American journalist, patron of the arts and media magnate, best known as the founder of the Hearst Corporation and builder of Hearst Castle, at San Simeon, California.  William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863 in San Francisco, California, the only child of George and Phoebe Hearst.  His father’s vast […]

William Raspberry (1935 - 2012)

William Raspberry (October 12, 1935 – July 17, 2012) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated American public affairs columnist. He was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. An African American, he frequently wrote on racial issues.  In 1999, Raspberry received the […]

William Ray Simpson (1862 - 1940)

Folk Figure. William Ray Simpson owned a hardware store in Delta, Colorado. On September 7, 1893, the McCarty outlaw gang rode into Delta and attempted to rob the Farmers and Merchants Bank. The McCarty Gang was made up of brothers Tom and Bill McCarty and Bill’s son, Fred McCarty. They were loosely associated with Butch […]

William Raymond Corson (1925 - 2000)

Author. United States Marine Corps veteran of 24 Years and three wars and intelligence specialist. He authored the books “The Betrayal,” “Consequences of Failure,””Promise or Peril” and “The Armies of Ignorance.” But, it was the book “The Betrayal” written in 1968 at the height of the war in Vietnam that brought him the most fame. […]

William Reaves Eason (1886 - 1956)

Motion Picture Director.  Most often billed as Reeves Eason.  Born in Friar Point,  Mississippi,  he quit the produce business to become a vaudeville performer and entered films as a director with the Flying A studio in 1913.  He went on to pilot over 150 low-budget westerns,  serials,  and adventure films,  for Universal and most of […]

William Reddington Hewlett (1913 - 2001)

Co-founder with David Packard of the Hewlett-Packard Company.  He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to San Francisco at the age of three.  William graduated from Lowell High School and received a bachelor’s degree in 1934 from Stanford University.  In 1935 he earned a MS degree in EECS from MIT and in 1939 […]

William Rice (1816 - 1900)

William Rice was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the third of ten children of David and Patty (née Hall) Rice. His first job was as a grocery store clerk in Springfield, at the age of 15. By age 22, he had purchased the store from its owner. In 1838, Rice traveled to Texas in search of […]

William Riley Burnett, II (1899 - 1982)

Author, screen writer.  William Riley (WR) Burnett wrote 36 novels and wrote or co-wrote 60 screenplays, dozens of magazine stories, short stories, plays and songs. Some of his more recognizable titles include “Little Caesar,” “Nobody Lives Forever,” and “The Dark Command.”  He collaborated with John Huston when working on the adaptation of his work, “High […]

William Robert Cox (1901 - 1988)

Author. He was prolific writer of short stories and Western and Mystery novels mainly for the pulp and paperback markets. He wrote under his own name as well as the pseudonyms “John Parkhill”, “Joel Reeve” and “Wayne Robbins”.

William Rockefeller (1841 - 1922)

Industrialist. The younger brother of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, he served as President of Standard Oil until its antitrust dissolution in 1911.  Family links:  Parents:  William Avery Rockefeller (1810 – 1906)  Eliza Davison Rockefeller (1813 – 1889)  Spouse:  Almira Geraldine Goodsell Rockefeller (1844 – 1920)  Children:  Emma Rockefeller McAlpin (1868 – 1934)*  William Goodsell […]

William Rosenberg (1916 - 2002)

William Rosenberg was the food franchising pioneer who founded the Dunkin’ Donuts chain and saw it spread from coast to coast and into 37 countries.  Family links:  Parents:  Nathan Edward Rosenberg (____ – 1955)  Phoebe Swart Rosenberg (1891 – 1992)  Spouse:  Bertha Greenberg Rosenberg (1914 – 2008)* *Calculated relationship

William Rufus Day (1849 - 1923)

Day was born in Ravenna, Ohio, son of Luther Day of the Ohio Supreme Court. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1870 and spent the following year in the school’s law department. He settled in Canton, Ohio in 1872, where he began practicing law in a partnership with William A. Lynch. For twenty-five […]

William Russell Mote (1906 - 2000)

A successful businessman, Mote’s gifts founded the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. He had a lifelong love of fishing and the sea. He received the 1994 International Oceanographic Foundation’s Gold Medal Award for a “nonprofessional who has done the most in the past year to promote the study of the sea”. In addition, he […]

William S. Paley (1901 - 1990)

William Paley quickly grasped the earnings potential of radio and recognized that good programming was the key to selling advertising time and, in turn, bringing in profits to the network and to affiliate owners. Before Paley, most businessmen viewed stations as stand-alone local outlets or, in other words, as the broadcast equivalent of local newspapers. […]

William Saul “Bill” Kroger (1906 - 1995)

Medical pioneer in the field of Psychology. (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Parents:  Charles Mendell Kroger (1879 – 1929)  Rose Ziskin Kroger (1880 – 1958)

William Schuman (1910 - 1992)

Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. president, William Howard Taft, though his family preferred to call him Bill. Schuman played the violin and banjo as a child, but his overwhelming passion was baseball. He attended Temple […]

William Seward Webb (1851 - 1926)

William Seward Webb (January 31, 1851 – October 29, 1926) was a businessman, and Inspector General of the Vermont militia with the rank of Colonel. He was a founder and former President of the Sons of the American Revolution. William Seward Webb was born on January 31, 1851 to James Watson Webb. He studied medicine […]

William Shea (1907 - 1991)

Lawyer. He is best known for his role in the expansion of Major League Baseball and the existance of the New York Mets franchise. In 1957 New York Mayor Robert Wagner asked him to head a committee to return the National League back to the city. After several attempts to lure an established franchise failed, […]

William Shoney O’Brien (1970 - 1878)

Businessman, Silver Tycoon. Born in Ireland and coming to the United States in 1845, O’Brien went to California following the Gold Rush in 1849. Finding little success at mining, he settled in San Francisco where he joined with James Flood to open the Auction Lunch Saloon in 1854, which they operated until 1866. With many […]

William Slocum Groesbeck (1815 - 1897)

U.S. Congressman, Attorney. Born in Kinderhook, New York, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio with his family in 1816 when he was a child. He attended Augusta College in Kentucky and graduated from the law department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1835. He was admitted to the bar in Ohio the following year and […]

William Sloper (1883 - 1955)

William Thomson Sloper (December 13, 1883 − May 1, 1955) was an American stockbroker and survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Sloper, who was 28 when the Titanic sank, traveled as a first-class passenger and was saved after boarding lifeboat #7, the first to be launched from the vessel. William Sloper was born in […]

William Smith (1933 - 2021)

William Smith When one talks about actor William Smith, not only are they discussing the career of one of the most prolific and popular cult actors of all time, but also one of the screen’s greatest villains. William Smith was born on March 24, 1933, in Columbia, Missouri, on a Hereford cattle ranch owned by […]

William Smith Kimball (1837 - 1895)

Businessman. He was founder of the Kimball Tobacco Factory in Rochester, New York, which he built around a handful of small tobacco-related devices invented by one of his employees. Kimball became one of the world’s largest tobacco product companies; the cigarette division alone supplied the world with 750 million cigarettes each year. His family home, […]

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 […]

William Steinway (1835 - 1896)

Businessman. The son of Steinway Pianos Company found Henry E. Steinway, he oversaw the expansion and growth of the company. Spouse: Regina Roos, divorced 1876.  Spouse 2: Elizabeth C. Ranft 1853 – 1893.  Family links:  Parents:  Henry Englehard Steinway (1797 – 1871)  Children:  George Augustus Steinway (1865 – 1898)*  Paula Theodora Steinway Von Bernuth (1866 […]

William Stephen “Bill” Arnsparger (1926 - 2015)

Professional Football Coach. He became famous as the “mastermind” of both the “No Name Defense” and the “Killer B’s” defense of the Miami Dolphins during the 1970s and 1980s. After serving in the Marines during World War II, he got into coaching in college football, serving as an assistant at Miami (Ohio), Ohio State, Kentucky, […]

William Surrey Hart (1864 - 1946)

Actor. Born in Newburgh, New York, he started his acting career in the 1920s.  At the age of 49, he proceeded west to Hollywood launching his motion picture career.  During the next eleven years, he became a prolific western movie actor and pioneer during the hay day of silent movies, earning the nickname “Two-Gun Bill,” […]

William Sutherland Beckett (1921 - 1977)

American Architect. Beckett, who graduated from Yale University and graduated in 1943 with a B.A. in architecture, moved to California and worked for Douglas Aircraft for a short time during World War II. He went to work for the architectural firm of Spaulding and Rex from 1944 to 1949, eventually achieving the title Chief Designer. […]