Frederick William Delger (1822–1898) was a German-born businessman in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. He became a shoe retailer after immigrating to the United States and was the richest man in Oakland by the time of his death, called Oakland's first millionaire.

Biography

Delger was born March 11, 1822 in the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony () was a German monarchy in Central Europe between 1806 and 1918, the successor of the Electorate of Saxony. It joined the Confederation of the Rhine after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, later joining the German ...

to Gottlieb Delger and Dorothea Wechtler. He served three years as a bookmaker's apprentice before immigrating to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1847. He was married there to Ernestine Blütcher in 1848. In 1853, he moved to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

by way of

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

and settled there, finding employment. In 1855, he opened a retail shoe store, which was successful, and later expanded into Sacramento. Once he had become wealthy as a shoe merchant, he expanded his interests into real estate. He became a stockholder and director at the Oakland Bank of Savings. He owned most of downtown Oakland. He was also responsible for one of the buildings in Preservation Park. Delger's daughter, Annie, married William Moller, a builder's supply merchant. Their daughter was

Lillian Moller Gilbreth Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth (; May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time and motion study, time-and-motion studies. She was d ...

, a central figure in

Cheaper by the Dozen ''Cheaper by the Dozen'' is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, published in 1948. The novel recounts the authors' childhood lives growing up in a household of 12 children. The bes ...

.Cheaper by the Dozen (Gilbreth and Gilbreth Carey; 1948) He died at the Delger estate in Oakland on April 25, 1898 at the age of 76.

References

1822 births 1898 deaths American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1820s-stub