Edward Burgess Butler

Edward Burgess Butler (December 16, 1853 - February 20, 1928), was an American businessman, the founder of Butler Brothers department stores.

Biography

He was born in 1853 in Lewiston, Maine to Manly Orville Butler and Elizabeth Howe. He had a sibling: George H. Butler. Manly owned a grocery store. In 1858 his family moved to Boston, Massachusetts and he attended the Boston public school system. For five years he sold goods throughout New England and Canada as a traveling salesman. He married Jane Holly in 1880, she was the daughter of William Henry Holly, of Norwalk, Connecticut. With his brother, George H. Butler, he founded Butler Brothers in Boston in 1877.

With his wealth he collected works by the 19th Century American painter George Inness, and later donated the collection to the Art Institute of Chicago. Having trained under Frank Charles Peyraud, Butler became a landscape painter. For a time he exhibited his works under a pseudonym, "Edward Burgess". In 1908 he exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Like so many of the well-to-do of his time, Butler moved to Pasadena, California, after he retired from business. His contemporaries admired his work, and one of his oil paintings was accepted into the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.

He belonged to the Chicago Art Club, and served as the first president of the Pasadena Society of Artists.

He died in Pasadena, California in 1928.

Titles

* Director of Illinois Merchants Trust Company
* Chairman of Ways and Means committee
* Chairman of the World's Columbian Exposition
* President of the Glenwood, Illinois Manual Training School
* Trustee of Hull House
* Trustee of Chicago Orphan Asylum
* Trustee of Girls' Refuge
* Trustee of First State Pawners' Society
* Trustee of Art Institute of Chicago

References

*"Chicago and Its Resources Twenty Years After, 1871-1891"; Chicago Times Company (1892) page 170
*Who's Who in Chicago (1926)

External links

* [http://www.rhlovegalleries.com/site/epage/19273_472.htm Bio at RH Love Galleries]
* [http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/lucile/publishers/butler/butler.htm University of Iowa: Butler Brothers]