Harry Frank Guggenheim

Infobox Person


image_size = 120px
name = Harry F. Guggenheim
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1890|8|23
birth_place = West End, New Jersey, U.S.
death_date = death date|1971|1|22
death_place = New York, New York, U.S.
occupation = Businessman:
Mining
Newspaper publishing
Statesman
Racehorse owner/breeder
Philanthropist

Harry Frank Guggenheim (August 23, 1890 - January 22, 1971) was a United States businessman, diplomat, publisher, philanthropist, and horseman.

Birth

He was born August 23, 1890 in West End, New Jersey to Florence and Daniel Guggenheim (1856-1930).

Education

He graduated in 1907 from the Columbia Grammar School in Manhattan, and then attended the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. He later left Yale and served a three-year apprenticeship in the mines and metallurgical plants of the American Smelting and Refining Company in Mexico, which was owned by the Guggenheim family. He resumed his education in 1910 at England's Pembroke College at Cambridge University, receiving his B.A. in 1913 and an M.A. from Cambridge also in 1913.

Copper

From 1913 to 1923, Guggenheim was an officer and director of several copper companies, including executive director of the Chile Copper Company, which owned the world's largest copper deposit.

World War I & II

In March 1917, as the United States moved toward involvement in World War I, Guggenheim bought a Curtiss Flying Boat and took piloting lessons. By May 1917 he had started a naval aviation unit at Manhasset, New York. In September 1917, he earned a commission as a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Navy Reserve and then served overseas in France, England and Italy until the end of the war. He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander but following the United States entrance into World War II, Guggenheim rejoined and served with the United States naval aviation forces from 1942 to 1945.

Guggenheim Foundation

In 1924, his parents established the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation and Harry was made a director and later president. Under his leadership, the foundation sponsored the research of Robert Goddard.

Guggenheim School of Aeronautics

He provided funds for the establishment of the first Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at New York University in 1925. He became president of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics a year later. This fund, totaling $3 million, included an equipment loan for operating the first regularly scheduled commercial airline in the United States. It also provided for the establishment of the first weather reporting exclusively for passenger airplanes.

Cuba

He was the United States ambassador to Cuba from 1929 until his resignation in 1933.

National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics

In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed Guggenheim to serve on the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics, a position that he held until 1938. In 1948, as president of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, he continued to support United States aviation progress when he helped organize the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center at the California Institute of Technology and the Guggenheim Laboratories for Aerospace Propulsion Sciences at Princeton University.

Newsday

Guggenheim, with his third wife, Alicia Patterson, established Newsday in 1940. Guggenheim was President of the company, while his wife was editor and publisher until her death in 1963, then he assumed those duties until 1967, when he relinquished the duties of editor and publisher. He continued as president and editor-in-chief until his retirement in May 1970. Under his guidance, the circulation of Newsday reached 450,000 and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Harry Guggenheim was a participant in the founding of the New York Racing Association. From 1929 he was a major Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder. His Cain Hoy Stable raced in the United States and was the owner of numerous successful horses including the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner, Dark Star. Also he was the breeder and owner (until Harry's death) of Ack Ack who is in the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame and was in 1971 Horse of the Year.

Death

Harry Frank Guggenheim died of cancer on January 22, 1971 at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City. He was buried in the Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

External links

*cite web
url = http://www.sandspointpreserve.org/htm/falaise.htm
title = Falaise - home of Henry Guggenheim
accessdate = 2006-06-03