Charles Andrew Whitney (November 14, 1834 – December 31, 1912) was an American businessman and industrialist in the late 19th century, born in Princeton, Massachusetts.[1] He was part of the prominent American Whitney family. In 1859, Charles, his brother Levi L. Whitney, and Orville E. Thompson helped lead the large-scale manufacturing of leather boots and shoes in Chicago and were attributed with successfully running the first factory of its kind there.[2] Whitney himself held patents for the manufacture of leather.[3]

Thompson, Whitney, and Co. (later Whitney Bros. and Co.) had 300 workers and annual revenue of over $300,000, producing over 100 cases of leather goods per week at its peak.[2] In the 1860s, the company was among the top producers in the rapidly growing Chicago leather industry, and its products were showcased in the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867.[4] In 1870, the company was noted as by far the highest-grossing producer in the city.[5]

After the loss of the factory in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Charles returned to Massachusetts with his wife Martha Elizabeth (Waters) Whitney,[6] and resided at the historic Waters Farm in Sutton, Massachusetts.[7] He died December 31, 1912, at the age of 78 from arteriosclerosis.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "Family:Whitney, Charles Andrew (1834-1912) - WRG".
  2. 1 2 "LEATHER, BOOTS AND SHOES.: The Tanneries of Chicago. Their Extent, Novembers and Value of Their Production". Chicago Tribune. 24 May 1866. p. 0_2. ProQuest 175501247.
  3. ↑ US Patents 221,024 and 229,631
  4. ↑ Reports, ed. by W.P. Blake. 1870.
  5. ↑ John Stephen Wright. Chicago: Past, Present, Future (Chicago: Horton & Leonard, 1870) p.207. https://books.google.com/books?id=wnwUAAAAYAAJ
  6. ↑ "RootsWeb: MAWORCES-L [MAWORCES] WHITNEY Family # 5 Ending". archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08.
  7. ↑ Collections of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume 7. (Worcester Historical Society, Worcester, Massachusetts: 1888), p. 138. https://books.google.com/books?id=dmmNWUTZsOQC
  8. ↑ "Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911-1915," from original records held by the Massachusetts Archives. Online database: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008; volume 1912/69 Death, page 231.
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