Bill Graham

popular name: Cornelius Vanderbilt

date_of_death: January 4, 1877

age: 82

cause_of_death: Exhaustion and chronic health issues

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: The Vanderbilt name is synonymous with America’s Gilded Age. Upon their deaths, “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt, who established the family’s fortune, and his son William H., who doubled it in just a few years, were the wealthiest men in the United States, if not the world. The steamboat and railroad companies they founded and led played a major role in the development of New York City and State. When he died in 1877 in his mansion at 10 Washington Place, Vanderbilt left a fortune of $105 million. He willed the bulk of it—$95 million, more than was possessed by the United States Treasury—to his oldest son, William Henry Vanderbilt.

popular name: Herman Armour

date_of_death: September 8, 1901

age: 64

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: At the young age of 18 Herman Armour left home and made his way to Milwaukee where he opened a butcher shop, eventually becoming Armour, Plankington & Co. With loads of ambition he left the business in charge of his partner, John Plankington, in 1862 and headed to Chicago where he established a grain commission business. Three years later he moved again, opening a branch office of Armour, Plankington & Co. (now a major pork packing business) in New York City. In 1868 Armour founded the commission house, H. O. Armour & Company, in New York City. By this time Herman's brother Philip oversaw the Midwestern packing business, renamed Armour & Co. in 1870. In 1875 that operation was moved to Chicago. With the death of his brother Philip in 1901, his son, J. Ogden Armour, took over the meatpacking business, hired thousands of African-American workers to break a union strike in 1904, and by 1923, as Armour Refrigerator Line was broken up for anti-trust violations, the business was at the brink of bankruptcy. After the younger Armour was fired, the company recovered and remained a major meatpacker for decades.

popular name: Charles Louis Fleischmann

date_of_death: December 10, 1897

age: 62

cause_of_death: Paralysis

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Charles Louis Fleischmann was a Hungarian-American who, along with his brother Maximilian and another partner, created America’s first commercially produced yeast, which revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and consumption of bread possible. It all began in 1870 when, at the instigation of his partner, Charles began to make yeast by a Hungarian method with which he had been long familiar. The patent for making compressed yeast from the froth or scum formed during the manufacture of malt or spirituous liquors was taken out, however, by his brother Henry, who assigned it to Fleischmann & Gaff in return for an annuity. This yeast was slow in finding a market, so that the partners nearly failed. As a last resort they put on a huge exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, at which spectators could see the yeast made, the dough set, and the bread baked, and could then adjourn to a restaurant and eat the bread. The exhibit was popular; the restaurant yielded a cash profit; and the advertising value of the enterprise was enormous. Thereafter there was no trouble in selling Fleischmann’s yeast. After Gaff’s death in 1879, Fleischmann bought his share in the business for $500, 000. His wealth grew rapidly. He became a director in some twenty-five Cincinnati enterprises and was president of a cooperage company, a large vinegar works in Illinois, a newspaper company, and the Market National Bank. He took a hand in civic affairs, was fire commissioner in 1890, was elected as a Republican to the state Senate in 1879 and again in 1895, and was a friend and adviser of William McKinley. Today Fleischmann's Yeast is the #1 seller of yeast and the #2 manufacture of vinegar in the world. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.