Samuel Simeon Fels (February 16, 1860 in

Yanceyville, North Carolina Yanceyville is a town in, and the county seat of, Caswell County, North Carolina, United States. Located in the Piedmont Triad region of the state, it had a population of 1,937 at the 2020 census. Established in 1791 as Caswell Court House, Yanc ...

– June 23, 1950 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

) was an American businessman and philanthropist.

Biography

Born to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in

, Fels family relocated to

, where Samuel's older brother

Joseph Fels Joseph Fels (16 December 1853–22 February 1914) was an American soap manufacturer, millionaire, Georgist and philanthropist. Biography Born of German Jewish immigrants in Halifax County, Virginia, Fels moved with his family to Baltimore in ...

founded a soap manufacturing company, Fels & Co., which found success with the product

Fels-Naptha Fels-Naptha is an American brand of laundry soap manufactured by Summit Brands. The soap was invented in 1893 by Fels and Company. It originally included the ingredient naphtha, effective for cleaning laundry and removing urushiol (an oil conta ...

. Samuel became the company's first president, a post he held until his death at age 90. Fels was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1939.

Philanthropy

An active philanthropist, Fels helped to establish the Committee of Seventy in 1904, for political reform in Philadelphia. The city was often portrayed in the popular press of the time as "a city mired in corruption". in 1936, Fels established the Samuel S. Fels Fund, which provides support to Philadelphia-area non-profit organizations. In 1937, his southside Philadelphia mansion was given to the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

, for the foundation of the Fels Institute of Government. Fels is known for commissioning

Samuel Barber Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor (music), conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the mid-20th century. Principally influenced ...

's Violin Concerto Op. 14 in 1939. In 1912, Henry H. Goddard dedicated his book on eugenics '' The Kallikak Family'' to Fels: "who made this study and who has followed the work from its incipiency with kindly criticism and advice".

References

External links

Fels Institute of Government, University of PennsylvaniaThe Fels Planetarium at The Franklin InstituteThe Samuel S. Fels FundIso Briselli, the adopted son of Samuel S. Fels
*Th

including correspondence, records and other materials, are available for research use at the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historic research facility headquartered on Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chron ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fels, Samuel Simeon 1860 births 1950 deaths American business executives American eugenicists American people of German-Jewish descent American philanthropists Businesspeople from Philadelphia Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni Jewish eugenicists Members of the American Philosophical Society People from Yanceyville, North Carolina University of Pennsylvania people