Herman Armour

Birth Name:

Herman Ossian Armour

Birth Date:

March 7, 1837

Birth Place:

Stockbridge, New York

Death Date:

September 8, 1901

Place of Death:

General Wilson B. French Cottage, Saratoga, New York

Age:

Cause of Death:

Heart attack

Cemetery Name:

Woodlawn Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Business and Finance

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.

Fun Fact

Armour’s meatpacking factories were the first to mass-produce canned meats, and the subsidiary Armour Refrigerator Line, a railroad car company, helped ship Armour products to distant markets, bringing the company to national prominence. The company’s infamously filthy Chicago slaughterhouse was involved in scandals in 1889 and ’99 involving the sale of tainted meats, and the same facility was a key inspiration for Upton Sinclair’s classic novel and exposé, The Jungle.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Woodlawn Cemetery

4199 Webster Avenue

Bronx, New York, 10470

USA

North America

Map:

Grave Location:

Chestnut Hill, Section 136

Grave Location Description

As you enter through the Jerome Avenue entrance drive straight ahead and then turn left on West Border Avenue. Make the first right on Chestnut Avenue and look to your right through the massive trees for the Armour mausoleum.