Sewell Lee Avery (November 4, 1874 – October 31, 1960) was an American businessman who achieved early prominence in gypsum mining and became president of the
United States Gypsum Company (1905–1936). At the beginning of the
Depression, he was asked by
J.P. Morgan & Co. to turn around the failing
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...
and succeeded in restoring its profitability by making huge changes. In 1936, ''
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fate
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (19 ...
'' magazine said that Avery was "generally held to be the No. 1 Chicago businessman." In the postwar years, however, he failed to take advantage of the demand for durable goods and did not expand Montgomery Ward, costing it prominence in the retail field.
Avery was active in Chicago civil activities, for instance, supporting the
Commercial Club's plan for a
Museum of Science and Industry and serving as its first president. He was also prominent in social circles, and in 1912 founded the private
Lincoln Park Gun Club with
Oscar F. Mayer
Oscar Ferdinand Mayer (March 29, 1859 – March 11, 1955) was a German American who founded the processed-meat firm Oscar Mayer that bears his name.
Early life and career
Mayer was born in Kösingen (now part of Neresheim), in the Kingdom of ...
,
Philip K. Wrigley
Philip Knight Wrigley (December 5, 1894 – April 12, 1977) was an American chewing gum manufacturer and a Major League Baseball executive, inheriting both of those roles as the son of William Wrigley Jr.
Biography
Wrigley was born in Chicago in ...
, and other prominent Chicagoans.
Early life and education
Sewell Lee Avery was born in
Saginaw, Michigan
Saginaw () is a city in Saginaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. It had a population of 44,202 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Saginaw River, Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township, ...
as the son of Ellen Lee and Waldo A. Avery, who were a leading business family of the region, with interests in lumber, banking and
mining
Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
. His father's family were considered
lumber baron
A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...
s. Avery attended public schools in Saginaw and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
, and the
Michigan Military Academy.
[James Grant, ''Money of The Mind: Borrowing and Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken''](_blank)
New York: Macmillan, 1994, p. 19 He earned a bachelor of laws degree in 1894 from the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
.
Marriage and family
Avery married Hortense Lenore Wisner soon after graduation. They started out in a small flat by the lake when he was taken on at a
gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...
plant in
Alabaster, Michigan. (His father was an investor in it and helped him get a start.) They had the first bathtub in town.
Career
In 1894, his father gave him a role in managing a gypsum plant in a small town in Michigan. Avery changed the name to
Alabaster
Alabaster is a mineral and a soft Rock (geology), rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word ''alabaster''. In archaeology, the term ''alab ...
Company, after the town, because he liked the sound of it. This was one of several companies that in 1901 became part of the consolidated gypsum concern
United States Gypsum Company. Then working as a sales manager in Buffalo, Avery became president in 1905. He kept that position until 1936, managing the company through extended growth. After that, he served as chairman of the company until 1951. With his brother Waldo Avery, he was a 3.6% stakeholder in USG.
Noticing his success,
J.P. Morgan & Co. invited him on to the board of US Steel in 1931. That same year, at the beginning of the
Depression, Morgan & Co. invited Avery to take on the challenge of re-establishing the profitability of
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...
, of which it owned a majority, offering Avery a generous salary and stock options.
[Grant (1994), ''Money of the Mind'', p. 21] After rapid expansion of retail outlets through the 1920s, from 10 stores in 1926 to 554 in 1930, it was rapidly losing money. Avery began as chairman by cost cutting and closing stores, replacing catalog managers with experienced chain-store managers, and reducing lines that were losing money.
He was admired; an employee later said of this time:
I never saw such a mass movement forward in a business. Avery turned the place inside out, even to the fixtures and decorations. All the fellows were hustling and bustling to make the grade in a big way. Everyone wanted to get in there and pitch for the old man.
By making the company become profitable, Avery earned great wealth in the process through significant stock options.
His strong control and caution worked against him as the company began to recover in the mid-1930s, when he might have allowed some expansion, but he believed the economy too fragile.
As president of the
Commercial Club of Chicago
The Commercial Club of Chicago is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) social welfare organization founded in 1877 with a mission to promote the social and economic vitality of the metropolitan area of Chicago.
History
The Commercial Club was founded in 187 ...
, Avery supported
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions i ...
's idea for an industrial museum as early as 1925. Rosenwald had built up
Sears, Roebuck as a strong competitor to Montgomery Ward. Avery followed up on his early support and served as the first president of the
Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
He supported politically conservative causes. He was a
financier
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...
of the
American Liberty League and a national adviser for one of its
front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy ...
s,
the Crusaders. Avery gave generously to the
Church League of America (CLA). He was one of many successful businessmen who did not favor the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
.
[
Avery endowed several professorial chairs at the ]University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, and he financially supported research and expeditions of the Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educationa ...
. A species of venomous coral snake
Coral snakes are a large group of elapid snakes that can be divided into two distinct groups, the Old World coral snakes and New World coral snakes. There are 27 species of Old World coral snakes, in three genera ('' Calliophis'', '' Hemibungar ...
, ''Micrurus averyi
''Micrurus averyi'', also known commonly as Avery's coral snake and the black-headed coral snake, is a species of coral snake, a venomous snake in the genus '' Micrurus'' of the family Elapidae. The species is indigenous to northern South Ame ...
'', is named in his honor.
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Avery repeatedly opposed actions of Roosevelt's National War Labor Board and opposed labor unions. He resisted signing a contract after a union had won representation for 7,000 of Montgomery Ward's employees until twice ordered by Roosevelt. When Avery refused to settle a strike in 1944, endangering the delivery of essential goods, Roosevelt's administration used emergency measures to remove him from office and temporarily seize the company; in April 1944 two soldiers had to pick him up by an arm each and carry him out of his office. Avery yelled at the Attorney General, who had flown to meet with him and try to avert a showdown, "To hell with the government, you... New Dealer!"
Following the government's seizure of Montgomery Ward, Avery was asked his plans. He said:
... the government has been coercing both employers and employees to accept a brand of unionism which in all too many cases is engineered by people who are not employees of the plant...these devices...only appear to make workers free to choose,... are a disguise for leading the nation into a government of dictators.
Soon back in charge of the retail company, Avery read widely on business. Fearing more depression after World War II, which had usually followed wars, he misread the postwar economy. Demand and available private money fed a rise in the retail business for durable goods. He continued his bearish position under the Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
and Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
administrations. Unlike Sears, Avery resisted pension plans, insurance and profit sharing with employees; he refused to spend money on company expansion. Soon Sears far outperformed Montgomery Ward; by 1951 it had more than double the business volume and had surpassed Montgomery Ward in retail stores, while Avery was prepared to weather a depression. Even after Avery resigned in 1954 as president, MW never regained its former position.
In 1955, Sewell retired with a fortune estimated at $327 million. He died in 1960, leaving an estate of $20 million (before taxes) to two daughters and seven grandchildren, according to filed inheritance tax returns.
Legacy
In late 1946 or early 1947, Avery gave 100% of the copyrights of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer created by Robert L. May. Rudolph is usually depicted as the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, using his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on C ...
, a story his employee Robert Lewis May had written in 1939 for a company promotional assignment, back to May. During the time between 1939 and 1947, the story had quickly become a popular part of Montgomery Ward's annual promotional campaign, with over six million copies given away. Avery's relinquishment of the copyrights from Montgomery Ward to May resulted in May immediately publishing the story commercially for the first time as a popular children's book, and later, having his brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks
John David Marks (November 10, 1909 – September 3, 1985) was an American songwriter. He specialized in Christmas songs and wrote many holiday standards, including " Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a hit for Gene Autry and others), " Rockin' Ar ...
, create a song based on it, becoming one of the best selling songs in history. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" has since become a popular part of pop culture and Christmas tradition in many parts of the world.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Avery, Sewell
1874 births
1960 deaths
American anti-communists
American manufacturing businesspeople
American retail chief executives
Businesspeople from Michigan
Montgomery Ward
People from Saginaw, Michigan
University of Michigan Law School alumni