Henry Bourne Joy

Henry Bourne Joy (November 23, 1864 in Detroit, Michigan - November 6, 1936) was President of the Packard Motor Car Company.

Early life

Henry Joy was born in Detroit in 1864, the son of Michigan Central Railroad president James F. Joy. James Joy was involved with the great railroad push to Missouri, and hired Abraham Lincoln to assist him with mergers. Henry Joy began his schooling in Michigan, then graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1883 and Yale University in 1892.

Career

Joy began his career as an office boy with Peninsular Car Company (a Detroit company controlled by his father), working his way up to becoming assistant treasurer. He left to try his hand at mining in Utah, but returned to Detroit to become treasurer (and later director) of the Fort Street Union Depot Company. Joy also held various positions at the Detroit Union Railroad Station and Depo Company (treasurer, vice president, president, and director), becoming president after his father's death in 1896. He was later treasurer and director of the Peninsular Sugar Refining Company.

In 1892, Joy married Helen Hall Newberry. During the Spanish-American War, Joy served abourd the USS Yosemite (along with his brother-in-law and lifelong friend, Truman Handy Newberry) as chief botswain's mate. Later, during WWI, Joy served in the Army Signal Corps, entering as a Captain and leaving as a Lieutenant Colonel.

Packard

In 1902, on a trip to New York City, Joy happened to see two Packards chase down a horse-drawn fire wagon. Intrigued, Joy bought the only Packard available in the city. Joy loved the car, and, impressed by its reliability, he visited James Ward Packard at his Warren, Ohio headquarters. Packard told him he and his brother William Dowd Packard needed more capital. Joy enlisted a group of investors that included his brother-in-law, Truman Handy Newberry. On October 2, 1902, the Ohio Automobile Company became Packard Motor Car Company, with Joy's investors obtaining majority ownership.

The company moved to Detroit, where Joy engaged Albert Kahn, then a young architect with novel ideas, to design and build the world’s first reinforced concrete factory on East Grand Boulevard. The company prospered under Joy's leadership; he became the president in 1909 and chairman of the board in 1916.

During this time, Packard gained a reputation for technology and luxury. Joy steered Packard into innovative motor truck developments, and the creation of a V-12 engine. At the outbreak of WWI, Joy began investigating airplane engines with Packard engineers, a research program that culminated in the renowned Liberty Motor Joy served at Packard until 1926 (with a temporary interruption to serve in WWI).

Later life

His belief that the national prohibition of alcohol would lead to a safer, healthier and better society led him to be very active in the Anti-Saloon League. However, after the social experiment was implemented he saw first-hand some of its negative consequences. For example, Treasury agents twice came onto his land and destroyed the property of his elderly watchman looking for illegal alcohol. Then a fisherman boating near Joy's house was fatally shot by an agent because he couldn't hear over the noise of his motor the demand of the agent that he stop and be searched for contraband beverage. Joy's testimony to the United States Congress contributed to the success of the movement for the repeal of prohibition in 1933.

In 1913, Joy became one of the principal organizers and president of the Lincoln Highway Association, a group dedicated to building a concrete road from New York to San Francisco. The effort, which was heavily promoted by his vice president, Carl Graham Fisher, succeeded, and a monument to Joy along the Lincoln Highway at the Continental Divide was dedicated on July 2, 1939. In 2001, this monument was moved to a more accessible location west of Cheyenne, Wyoming. His great-grandson, Henry Bourne Joy IV, is a film maker, drives on the PRO-Rally circuit and is a life member of the revived Lincoln Highway Association.

ee also

*Repeal organizations

ources

*Kyvig, David "Repealing National Prohibition". Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
*Moore, Charles "History of Michigan" The Lewis Publishing Co, 1915. [http://books.google.com/books?id=FR3aHb2JSTAC&pg=PA652 pp 652-653.]
*Ingham, John M. "Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders" Greenwood Press 1983. [http://books.google.com/books?id=J9nXHgKQ49EC&pg=PA685&&as_brr=3&ei=IAkYR_aOBoPupwLZuY3sAg&sig=28yOU0cg_HSk3kBoMhX5tbjNr78 pp 685-688]
*Barnett LeRoy "A Drive Down Memory Lane: The Named State and Federal Highways of Michigan" Wayne State University Press 1983 [http://books.google.com/books?id=HhG46TGapxoC&pg=PT127&as_brr=3&ei=IAkYR_aOBoPupwLZuY3sAg&sig=iInRd7AXI5vqDgBNjdK02QvWRoI#PPT127,M1 pp 122-123]
* [http://www.lincolnhighwayoh.com/Southwell.html Lincoln Highway]
* [http://www.automotivehalloffame.org/honors/index.php?cmd=view&id=663&type=inductees Automotive Hall of Fame]