Isaac Leopold Rice (February 22, 1850 – November 2, 1915) was a German-born Jewish American businessman, investor, musicologist, author, and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

patron. Jews of Philadelphia
Henry Samuel Morais, 1894, pp. 341-342 As part of a successful career in the manufacturing industry, in 1899 he acquired the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, which was renamed the

Electric Boat Company Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

and produced submarines for the U.S. and British navies. It continues today as

General Dynamics Electric Boat General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) is a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation. It has been the primary builder of submarines for the United States Navy for more than 100 years. The company's main facilities are a shipyard in Groton, C ...

Life and career

Rice was born in

Wachenheim Wachenheim an der Weinstraße (formerly called ''Wachenheim im Speyergau'') is a small town in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, roughly 1 km south of Bad Dürkheim and 20 km west of Ludwigshafen. It is known ...

, Bavaria in 1850, the son of Mayer Rice and Fanny Sohn Rice. He emigrated to the United States with his mother in 1856. He was educated at the Central High School in Philadelphia and at nineteen he was sent to Paris, where he studied music for three years. While there he sent stories to the Philadelphia newspapers for printing. In 1868 he moved to England, where he became a teacher of music and languages. On his return to America a year later he moved to New York City and practiced music before going back to school to become a lawyer. After graduating from Columbia College Law School in 1880 he practiced law for the rest of the decade. In the practice of law he became more aware of and involved in the transportation business, mainly in the expanding railroad empires and their multiplying legal imbroglios. He was regarded in his time as one of the ablest specialists in railroad law in the United States, and held large investments in several lines, including the

Philadelphia and Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called ...

and

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly call ...

. He was invited to start a publishing company by some associates in the music printing societies. In the 1890s he was looking to move and diversify and possibly invest early in emerging companies with a potential for growth. In 1892 he bailed out the bankrupt Electro-Dynamic Company in partnership with its proprietor, William Woodnut Griscom.Records of the Electric Launch Company
/ref> He became the first president of '' The Forum'' magazine, and later the Electric Storage Battery Co. (later Exide) in 1897. Some of the numerous other companies Rice organized or was involved in included the Electric Vehicle Company, Car Lighting and Power Company, American

Casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...

Company, and the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company.Isaac L. Rice obituary
''The New York Times'', November 3, 1915 Yeshiva Katana of Manhattan

As president of Electric Storage, he became aware of the attempts (despite financial difficulties) since 1896 to deliver the first modern submarines for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, which ran on electric power while underwater. A year after the 1897 launch of their first vessel, the ''Holland VI'', the management of John Philip Holland and Lewis Nixon (owner of the

Crescent Shipyard Crescent Shipyard, located on Newark Bay in Elizabeth, New Jersey, built a number of ships for the United States Navy and allied nations as well during their production run, which lasted about ten years while under the Crescent name and banner. ...

in New Jersey, where ''Holland VI'' was built) found it difficult to finish making the last details operable and were running out of cash. Isaac Rice moved in, taking over and renaming the company as the Electric Boat Company on 7 February 1899. After a few months of negotiations and multiple tests, the United States Navy purchased ''Holland VI'', renamed it USS ''Holland'', and awarded the new company a contract to build its first fleet of s. Also in 1899, Rice added the

Electric Launch Company The Electric Launch Company, later renamed Elco Motor Yachts ("Elco"), is an American boat building and electric motor company that has operated from 1893 to 1949 and from 1987 to the present. History Elco first made its mark at the World's Col ...

(Elco) to his family of companies. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Rice's new company (Electric Boat) and its subsidiaries (notably Elco) built 85 Navy submarines and 722 submarine chasers, along with 580

Motor Launch A Motor Launch (ML) is a small military vessel in Royal Navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high-speed air-sea rescue. Some vessels for water police service are also known as motor launches. ...

es for the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

(in the World War I era Electric Boat's submarines were built by

subcontractor A subcontractor is an individual or (in many cases) a business that signs a contract to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract. Put simply the role of a subcontractor is to execute the job they are hired by the contractor f ...

s, primarily

Fore River Shipbuilding Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corporation located on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts. It began operations in 1883 in Braintree, and moved to its final location on Quincy Point in 1901. In ...

in Quincy, Massachusetts). Electric Boat was a founding company of

General Dynamics Corporation General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the U ...

, which is the company's Cold War progeny. In 1902 he received from

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

the honorary degree of LL.D. Edward Winter
Professor Isaac Rice and the Rice Gambit
(2006) The books published by Rice include: "What Is Music?" (New York, 1875), which was supplemented by "How the Geometrical Lines Have Their Counterparts in Music" (ib. 1880). The latter work was subsequently made part of the "Humboldt Library of Science." He also contributed a large number of articles to the '' Century'', '' The Forum,'' of which he was a founder, and ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived at ...

''.

Personal life

Rice married Julia Hyneman Barnett (1860–1929) on December 12, 1885. His "intellectual partner" and an "accomplished musician", Julia B. Rice campaigned successfully against the horns and whistles of ships and founded the Society for Suppression of Unnecessary Noise (1907). They had six children: Muriel "Polly" (1888–1926), Dorothy "Dolly" (1889–1960), Isaac Leopold Jr.,

Marion Marion may refer to: People *Marion (given name) *Marion (surname) *Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion" *Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992) Places Antarctica * Mario ...

"Molly" (1891–1990), Marjorie "Lolly" (1893–1980) and Julian. Dorothy Rice (Peirce, Sims) and Marion Rice Hart both became famous sportswomen—aviators, among other things—and writers. Isaac and Julia, Muriel and Dorothy are buried in a family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Ocala, Florida. Rice died at the Hotel Ansonia in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

on November 2, 1915. The obituary does not give the cause of death, but does state that he sold his Electric Boat stock for two million dollars (in 1915 money) a few months prior to it. He is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Ocala, Florida.Isaac Leopold Rice at Findagrave.com
/ref>

Chess

Rice was a prominent figure in the American chess world. He became president of the Manhattan Chess Club, and presented for competition several trophies, including the one that was competed for annually by cable by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, representing England, and those of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, representing the United States. In 1895 he discovered a variation of the Kieseritzky gambit, which then became known as the

Rice Gambit The Rice Gambit is a chess opening that arises from the King's Gambit Accepted. An offshoot of the Kieseritzky Gambit, it is characterized by the moves 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6 6. Bc4 d5 7. exd5 Bd6 8. 0-0 (instead of th ...

. He then sponsored tournaments where the opening became the starting point of each game.

Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Cham ...

and Mikhail Chigorin were two of many players who contested these tournaments, with bonus prizes for white wins. In 1904 he formed the ''Rice Gambit Association'' which published a detailed analysis of the effects of the move.

Notable chess game

Rice played

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

in this game against

Wordsworth Donisthorpe __NOTOC__Wordsworth Donisthorpe (24 March 1847 – 30 January 1914) was an English barrister, individualist anarchist and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast. Life and work Donisthorpe was born in Leeds, on 24 March 1847. ...

, played in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1892.Rice-Donisthorpe, London 1892
/ref> 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Bh4+ 5.g3 fxg3 6.O-O d5 7.exd5 gxh2+ 8.Kh1 Bh3 9.Qe2+ Kf8 10.Rd1 Bg4 11.d4 Nf6 12.Nc3 Nh5 13.Ne4 f5 14.Rf1 "Fine repartee. If Black now take the knight, White recovers with advantage by 15 Nxh4+." Nd7 15.Qg2 Bf6 16.Neg5 Qe7 17.Ne6+ Kf7 18.Nfg5+ Bxg5 "A beautiful termination is here avoided if 18...Kg6 19 Qxg4 fxg4 20 Bd3+ Kh6 21 Nf7 mate." 19.Qxg4 Bxc1 20.Qxh5+ g6 21.Rxf5+ "White's conduct of the attack is of high scientific order. This involves a well devised sacrifice of the exchange which we find sound in various intricate complications." Nf6 22.d6 "White's play in the main deserves special marks of distinction." cxd6 23.Rxf6+ "Quite in keeping with the fine quality of the preceding train of moves on White's part." Qxf6 24.Qd5 "White administers the quietus with this very clever stroke." b5 25.Qb7+ Qe7 26.Ng5+ Kf6 27.Ne4+ Qxe4+ 28.Qxe4 1-0 Annotations by World Champion

Wilhelm Steinitz William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and c ...

in the '' New York Tribune''.

References

Notes

External links

* *
It took more than half a century for credit to catch up with Holland, in part because of the efforts of his business partners ... in Electric Boat
Isaac L. Rice, lawyer Elihu B. Frost, engineers Frank Taylor Cable and Lawrence York Spear, and naval constructor, Arthur Leopold Busch
CorpWatch : General Dynamics
at www.corpwatch.org Site covering the history of General Dynamics beginning with Electric Boat Company

Ironic lawsuit filed by Isaac L. Rice and Electric Boat against John Philip Holland in October 1905 * * (including 1 "from old catalog") {{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, Isaac 1850 births 1915 deaths American musicologists American financiers American industrialists American manufacturing businesspeople 19th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople American company founders Columbia Law School alumni American chess players Jewish chess players Chess patrons Bavarian emigrants to the United States People from Bad Dürkheim (district) American non-fiction writers 19th-century chess players 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century philanthropists