John Pitcairn Jr.

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This article is about the industrialist. For the British marine, see John Pitcairn.

John Pitcairn Jr.
Born(1841-01-10)January 10, 1841
Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland
DiedJuly 22, 1916(1916-07-22) (aged 75)
Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, United States
NationalityScottish-American
Occupation(s)Capitalist, Industrialist
SpouseGertrude Starkey
ChildrenVera Pitcairn
Raymond Pitcairn
Theodore Pitcairn
Harold Frederick Pitcairn
Signature

John Pitcairn Jr. (January 10, 1841 – July 22, 1916) was a Scottish-born American industrialist. With just an elementary school education, Pitcairn rose through the ranks of the Pennsylvania railroad industry, and played a significant role in the creation of the modern oil and natural gas industries. He went on to found the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (now PPG Industries), an early industry innovator which quickly grew into the largest manufacturer of plate glass in the United States, and amassed one of the largest fortunes in the United States at the time.

Pitcairn was also the primary financial benefactor of the

anti-vaccination movement
.

Early life

Pitcairn was born on January 10, 1841,[1] in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, to John Pitcairn Sr. (1803–1884), a machinist, and Agnes McEwan (1803–1891), a housekeeper.[2] He was one of six children resulting from the marriage, and also had one older half-sibling from his father's first marriage.[3]

Pitcairn's parents had initially emigrated to America around 1835, and lived first in

woolens business.[4] There, Pitcairn attended public school until dropping out at age 14 to pursue a career in the railroad.[5]

Around 1849 Pitcairn and the rest of his family were baptized by David Powell, a reverend of the New Church.[2]

Career

Rail

Oil Creek and Allegheny River Railway stock certificate vignette

Pitcairn began his professional life at the age of 14, working as an office boy for the general superintendent of the

Oil Creek and Allegheny River Railway Company.[5]

Energy

Upon forming a partnership with J. J. Vandergrift of Pittsburgh and

natural gas pipeline for manufacturing purposes, and had a controlling stake in the Natural Gas Company, Ltd., founded in the summer of 1875, and later to become the Natural Gas Company of West Virginia.[6] Through these and other successful investments in energy, mining, and banking, Pitcairn substantially expanded his wealth.[4]

Glass

Headquarters of PPG Industries, formerly Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company

In 1883, Pitcairn teamed up with Captain

flat glass using the plate process. PPG was also the world's first plate glass plant to power its furnaces with locally produced natural gas, an innovation which rapidly stimulated widespread industrial use of the cleaner-burning fuel.[7]

PPG expanded quickly. By 1900, known as the "Glass Trust", it included ten plants, had a 65 percent share of the U.S. plate glass market, and had become the nation's second largest producer of paint.

chemicals.[7]

Pitcairn served as a director of PPG from its start, its president from 1897 to 1905, and chairman of the board from 1894 until his death.[9]

Magnate

Pitcairn's interests and holdings were not limited to PPG; at the time of his death, he was also president of the C. H. Wheeler Manufacturing Company, the Pittsburgh Valve and Fittings Company, and the Loyal Hanna Coal and Coke Company, and a director of the Central National Bank of Philadelphia, the Columbia Chemical Company, the Michigan Chemical Company, the Natural Gas Company of West Virginia, and the Owosso Sugar Company.[6]

Family

Pitcairn was the brother of Pennsylvania railroad magnate Robert Pitcairn and consul-general Hugh Pitcairn.

In 1877, the already highly successful, 38-year-old Pitcairn met 21-year-old Gertrude Starkey (1855–1898). Two years later, he proposed marriage, but was gently turned down. Reputedly, Starkey's strong New Church beliefs about the ideal of marriage required her to conduct a close examination of the spiritual nature of her feelings for him. Undeterred by her rejection, Pitcairn continued to court Starkey for five more years. Finally she accepted, and they were married in 1884.[10]

Following their marriage, the couple lived on Spring Garden Street in

Philadelphia, until the completion of the new family estate, Cairnwood, in 1895.[10] Together they had six children, only four of whom survived infancy.[9]
These were:

Religious philanthropy

Bryn Athyn Cathedral

Pitcairn was an active member and benefactor of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, a branch of the New Church, which follows the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Pitcairn's financial largess enabled the founding of the Swedenborgian settlement at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, the construction of the town's library, and the New Church's Bryn Athyn Cathedral.[15] He also financed the construction of a new campus for the Academy of the New Church, a Swedenborgian learning center comprising a secondary school, a college, and a theological school. The campus was completed in 1911.[16]

Anti-vaccination activism

"The Fallacy of Vaccination" by John Pitcairn

During the last ten years of his life, Pitcairn was highly active in the American

anti-vaccination movement. According to public health historian James Colgrove, Pitcairn's opposition to vaccination stemmed from Swedenborgian teachings, a devotion to homeopathy, an alternative medical practice embraced by many New Church members, and his son Raymond's adverse reaction to a vaccination.[17] On March 5, 1907, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he delivered an address to the Committee on Public Health and Sanitation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly criticizing vaccination.[18]
He later sponsored the National Anti-Vaccination Conference, which, held in Philadelphia on October, 1908, led to the creation of the
Ladies Home Journal, a periodical with a readership of several million. On December 1, 1911, he was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener to the Pennsylvania State Vaccination Commission,[6] which in accordance with the law mandating it, was to include as members two anti-vaccinationists as well as two pro-vaccinationists.[19] Pitcairn subsequently authored a detailed report strongly opposing the commission's pro-vaccination conclusions.[6]

Later life and death

Cairnwood Mansion

Construction of Pitcairn's family estate, Cairnwood, was completed in 1895. His wife, Gertrude, died just a few years later, in 1898. Pitcairn never remarried. When asked why, he once responded, "I would no sooner remarry than if Gertrude were standing in the other room."[10]

Pitcairn remained quite active in his numerous business, philanthropy, and social activism capacities well into his seventies. Finally, in the fall of 1915, he suffered a bout of pneumonia, from which he never fully recovered. He died at Cairnwood on July 22, 1916.[6]

In 2002, Cairnwood was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places.[11]

References

  1. ISBN 0-910557-22-5
    .
  2. ^ a b c Odhner, Theophilus (January 1917). "John Pitcairn: A Biography". New Church Life. XXXVII (1). Archived from the original on July 1, 2013. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  3. ^ Pitcairn, Sheila (2002). "The Pitcairn Family". Sheila Pitcairn. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
  4. ^
    ISBN 9780471175360
    .
  5. ^
    The Ambler Gazette
    . Vol. XXXIV, no. 29. July 27, 1916. p. 1.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Higgins, Charles Michael (1920). Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated: "Life Sketch of John Pitcairn By A Philadelphia Friend". Brooklyn, New York: C.M. Higgins.
  7. ^ a b "125 Anniversary". PPG Industries. 2008. Archived from the original on November 14, 2008. Retrieved November 10, 2008.
  8. ^ Garrett, Jeff (August 1, 2006). "Our Local Heritage : Tarentum-Area Glass Companies". Alle-Kinski Today Online. Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved November 10, 2008.
  9. ^ a b Ingham, John M. (1983). Biographical Dictionary of American Leaders. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1101–1102.
    ISBN 0-313-21362-3
    .
  10. ^ a b c "History: A Love Story". Cairnwood. 2008. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved November 12, 2008.
  11. ^ a b "Cairnwood". The Gombach Group. Retrieved October 10, 2008.
  12. ^ a b c Jaffe, Dennis T.; Jungé, Dirk; Paul, Joseph (2004). "Reinventing a family dynasty" (PDF). Family Business Magazine (Winter). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 6, 2009.
  13. ^ Sanders, Richard (March 2004). "Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism: Pitcairn family". Press for Conversion! Magazine (# 53).
  14. ^ Bostock, Peter G. (October 22, 2000). "Management Style: A Break from Tradition". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ "John Pitcairn". The New York Times. July 23, 1916. p. 17.
  16. ^ "The Academy of the New Church". The Academy of the New Church. Retrieved November 24, 2008.
  17. S2CID 38937080. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on December 21, 2012. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
  18. ^ Pitcairn, John (1907). Vaccination. Anti-Vaccination League of Pennsylvania.
  19. ^ Sutherland, John P., ed. (January 1912). "State Vaccination Commission for Pennsylvania". The New England Medical Gazette. XLVII (1). Boston, MA: The Medical Gazette Publishing Company: 109.

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