Joseph N. Pew Jr.

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Joseph N. Pew Jr.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting placeWest Laurel Hill Cemetery
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCornell University
OccupationIndustrialist
Political partyRepublican Party
SpouseAlberta C. Hensel
Children5

Joseph Newton Pew Jr. (November 12, 1886 – April 9, 1963) was an American industrialist and influential member of the Republican Party.

Early life

Born in

Joseph N. Pew. Called "Joe," he attended Shady Side Academy and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1908. As an undergraduate, Pew was captain of the track team and won the IC4A championship in the hammer throw. He was also a member of the Quill and Dagger society.[1] As an outstanding athlete and donor to Cornell athletics, he was inducted into the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986.[2]

Pew married Alberta C. Hensel and had five children.[3]

Sun Oil

Main article:
Sun Oil

In 1908, after graduation, Pew began work at Sun Oil , a business founded by his father in 1890. When his father died in 1912, Pew became vice president at the age of 26 and his brother, J. Howard Pew, became president of Sun Oil at the age of 30.[4]

Marcus Hook Refinery

In 1901, Joseph N. Pew Sr. purchased 82 acres in

Sun Oil. Joseph N. Pew Jr. persuaded the company to lay gasoline pipelines from the Marcus Hook refinery to distribution points in Ohio, New York, and New Jersey and then negotiated with 1,000 landholders in four states for permission to cross their property. The Lindenthorpe Mansion on the Delaware River waterfront became the Sunoco plant headquarters.[6]

In 1916, Pew and his brother J. Howard, who had become Sun Oil’s president in 1912, expanded into the shipbuilding business. Joseph Jr. ran the

tetraethyl lead, creating Blue Sunoco. He also developed a gyroscopic instrument with high-speed camera and timing device for preventing the drilling of crooked holes in oil wells. Receiving a patent in 1926, the device helped the company drill deeper oil wells.[1]

Known for their commitment to employees, the Pews never laid off a single Sun Oil employee during the Great Depression and also developed one of the first stock-sharing plans for employees.

Pew remained vice president of the company until being appointed chairman in 1947. He was chairman until his death in Philadelphia, PA in 1963. Pew hired his

Sun Oil treasurer and vice president.[4]

Political career

In 1933–34 Pew went to Washington, D.C., to fight the New Deal petroleum code, which he believed would lead to price-fixing. This endeavor was the beginning of his political career. Pew was heavily involved in Republican politics, mostly in

Pennsylvania Governor and Bernard Samuel as Mayor of Philadelphia.[8]

Pew appeared on the cover of

Time Magazine
on May 6, 1940 as "Republican Pew" along with an article about his political involvement.

Philanthropy

In 1948, Pew and his siblings founded The Pew Charitable Trusts, a group of philanthropic foundations that support social needs around the world. Among the foundation’s funded projects is the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan opinion research group that focuses on issues of the press, public policy, and politics.[6]

As of 2007, it was one of the nation's wealthiest foundations. The first grant given to education was to Cornell University, where the Pew Engineering Quad and an engineering professorship bear his name. In 1951, Pew began an effort to assist traditionally black colleges, hiring Cornell alumnus Jerome H. Holland as a consultant to the foundation.[1]

In 1957, Pew was listed on the

seventy-six wealthiest Americans
.

Death and legacy

Pew died in 1963, and is entombed in the family mausoleum in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ a b c A History of The Pew Charitable Trusts Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame
  3. ISBN 0-313-23910-X
    .
  4. ^ a b Sunoco Company History Archived 2012-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ISBN 9780738550138
  6. ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica (November 12, 2007). "Joseph N. Pew Jr. – American Industrialist". www.britannica.com. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  7. ISBN 0-271-00238-7
    .
  8. ISBN 0-405-05903-5
    .

Further reading

  • Alberta C. Pew, Joseph N. Pew Jr., Margaret R. Leisenring, Edward B. Leisenring, Jay Cooke, A.E.F.: Anticosti Expeditionary Force (Philadelphia?: Privately Printed, 1935). Account of a private fishing expedition to
    Anticosti
    island in Canada, includes photographs of Pew and his wife.

External links
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