antoine dupont father

Eleven years earlier duPont’s father, Antoine Bidermann Sr., and his uncle, Alfred Victor II, had left Delaware to seek their fortunes in Kentucky. The du Pont family fortune spans continents and centuries. Forbes was unable to speak with Richards despite multiple phone calls and requests through representatives. Thus, the company turned to a man whose “practical as well as theoretical knowledge of all things pertaining to the operation of a street railway is well known.”25, In barely three years General Manager duPont rejuvenated the St. Louis Transit System. So unlike many unfortunate people who come before me, you are lucky in that regard, and I hope you appreciate that.”. The subsequent battles between Pingree and Tom Johnson are thoroughly chronicled elsewhere; it is sufficient to note that Johnson eventually converted to Pingree’s crusade for lowered fares, and the two men became allies. $ 35.96. Whatever the interpretation, the 1908 Cleveland streetcar strike and its aftermath marked the low point in the otherwise distinguished careers of Tom Johnson and A.B. My freedom was involved as much as that of the colored fellows.”46, DuPont, in fact, supported nearly all of the most popular causes of the Progressive Era. On the day of his sentencing, though he promised he would undergo treatment out of state at an upscale clinic affiliated with Harvard Medical School, his probation status didn’t allow him to do so. In 1906 Chicago’s reform mayor Edward Dunne called on duPont to help arbitrate a price for the sale of the privately owned street railway system to the city. “The du Pont family—huge family—they had their crazy people...and they just took care of it,” says the source close to the Richards case, who points out that, at the least, Richards must pay a price his forebears never would have had to. Hauser, “A.B. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. In addition to promoting tax reform and civil rights, he was an early feminist. duPont Papers, Scrapbook, Folder 17, FHS; John D. Buenker, “Edward F. Dunne: The Limits of Municipal Reform,” in Paul M. Green and Melvin G. Holli, eds., On Johnson’s crusade for municipal ownership of the Cleveland street railways, see, “The Cleveland Electric Ry. Louisville thus became one of the first cities in the United States to convert entirely to electric-powered cars, while many larger cities still depended on horses. (Michelle Ghoussoub) He could not have predicted what happened next. Upon his release, he went back to living on the proceeds of his multimillion-dollar trust fund, the result of being a member of one of Delaware’s most powerful families, the du Ponts. Tracy Richards wouldn’t discuss the case with Forbes. Book Review: Do They Miss Me at Home? That’s what happened in this case, according to a source with a close understanding of the case who asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisal. Upon reading Progress and Poverty, Johnson became troubled that he had possibly gained his wealth through unfair “privilege,” thereby contributing to America’s social and economic inequality. Pierre’s son Éleuthère Irénée, also known as E.I., was a scientist who worked at a gunpowder plant in France, where he focused on improving the explosive’s formula and techniques for its mass production. Ohio University Press Series on Law, Society, and Politics in the Midwest. Like many civic leaders throughout the country, duPont had been impressed with underground systems in London, Paris, and New York, and he became fascinated with the idea of a subway for Cleveland. The late chemical heir and convicted murderer John du Pont, wearing a warm-up suit from Team Foxcatcher, the private wrestling club he funded at his estate. So focused was duPont in making his points, he never noticed what he was eating, and never commented on the food. As most of the franchises were due to expire, the mayor planned to convert the lines into a municipally owned operation, pledged to a fare of three cents. Du Pont was found guilty of third-degree murder and went to psychiatric treatment in Pennsylvania’s Cresson state correctional facility. A colleague later reminisced that “it took only a short time with his pencil to solve . Cleveland’s voters, blaming Johnson for poor service caused by the strike, approved the measure in October 1908. “A.B. On February 6, 2009, Robert Richards admitted to raping his 3-year-old daughter. I was born January 8, 1920, and I have not died yet. Ermann duPont’s wife, Mary Ethel, later recalled how the couple’s young daughters would playfully pin flowers on George’s hat and clothing as he conversed with their father, then giggle with affection as the absent-minded reformer rode away on his bicycle, oblivious to his ridiculous appearance.22 George died in 1897, but duPont and Tom Johnson remained true to their friend’s memory, determined to do all they could in the causes of tax reform and social justice. You may opt-out by. It is difficult to dispute the conclusion of his friend, Elizabeth Hauser, that Ermann duPont died as he had lived – “a free man.”51, “Negotiations Between A.B. More than simply a tax reform measure, Henry George considered his idea a panacea for all of society’s ills.19, DuPont’s original introduction to the Single Tax probably occurred in a New York City hotel room in 1883 or 1884, during a meeting with Johnson, Cleveland attorney L.A. Russell, and Johnson’s business associate Arthur Moxham. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. According to David Finkelhor, director of Crimes Against Children Research Center, prosecutors can find themselves in a tough spot when presented with cases where the victims are young children (and thus, unfortunately, not strong witnesses) and there is little to no medical evidence. The most thorough and balanced narrative of Pingree’s battles with Tom Johnson is Melvin G. Holli, “The Detroit Citizens’ Street Railway Company,”. Genealogy profile for Pierre Antoine, comte Dupont de l'Étang. I am Cindy Kelly, it is August 11, 2014, and we are in the gracious home of Irénée du Pont, Jr. By this time he had also began to exhibit some unusual personal characteristics, particularly extreme single-mindedness, as he would lock onto an idea and become oblivious to all else. Not until they disembarked in front of the family’s suburban residence did he realize they had been on the same car.29, DuPont soon expanded his interest in streetcars from purely technical and managerial aspects to the movement for municipal ownership. The motormen and conductors of the Detroit street railways, represented by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Railway Employees, had a reputation for “[going] around with a chip on their shoulder,” and had engaged in a bloody strike in 1891.13 A dearth of source material makes it impossible to assess the intricacies of collective bargaining and labor-management relations during the duPont years, but the feeling of mutual respect between manager duPont and his workers was so strong that upon the announcement, in December 1900, that he was leaving for a position in St. Louis, one thousand members of the Association held a farewell banquet in his honor. Throughout the summer and fall of 1910 over 60,000 visitors sampled the test rides, which the company advertised prominently in Cleveland’s daily newspapers.41 Despite the opposition of the still-angry streetcar men of Division 268, who mocked the subway as “duPont’s Groundhog,” and Cleveland News publisher Charles Otis, who hated Tom Johnson and all of his associates, voters overwhelmingly approved both subways. (The episode was dramatized in the 2014 film Foxcatcher; Steve Carell earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of du Pont.). Hardcover. . duPont applied his energies to one project after another. For example, Antoine Bidermann duPont Sr. had boldly supported the Union cause in the Civil War, despite the presence in Louisville of significant Confederate sympathy, and Ermann’s sister Zara would, in later years, march in support of the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War.16 But duPont was undoubtedly also influenced by his friend, Tom Johnson, who had long cultivated a reputation for enlightened labor policies. That’s what really did it.”. duPont served as president of the Seamless Steel Bathtub Company, while overseeing his interurban line. His father, Pierre Samuel du In his 1879 treatise, Progress and Poverty, George argued that the inequality between the taxes paid by privileged interests and those paid by working class people was responsible for nearly all of the world’s social problems. “But I think you have significant treatment needs that have to be addressed, and you have very strong family support. duPont engaged in a variety of activities. His lawyer, calling the 6-foot-4, roughly 300-pound Richards “a somewhat gentle person,” argued he “would not fare well” in jail. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2009. x + 222 pp. Book Antoine today at 561-272-8567 What makes it harder for prosecutors, Finkelhor says, is when the alleged perpetrator has money for a strong defense. duPont’s mastery of every facet of street railway operations in St. Louis, “from the handling of the affairs of a great corporation and laying of power houses, car equipment, road beds, shops, and . She is survived by her three children, Dominique Dupont-Dubois, Steven Alexander Dubois, and Robert Anthony Dubois, along with their father, Dr. Wilfrid Dubois. duPont practiced a non-ostentatious lifestyle. While it is an almost unpardonable sin for a historian to write that a person “left the world a better place,” this is no doubt true in the case of A.B. Richards did have support that most convicts lacked. Almost always smiling, Antoine doesn’t just show business owners how to grow their businesses…He reveals how you can have fun doing it. Richards was eventually arrested on charges that he had been abusing his daughter since she was about 3 years old. The report also indicated that Richards promised that whatever he did to his son he would never do again. His father had shown no qualms about taking a firm line with unions and breaking strikes in Louisville, and his older brother, Thomas Coleman duPont, destined to become president of E.I duPont deNumours, had once used convict labor to break a strike in a family-owned Kentucky coal mine.15 But many of the duPonts, despite their wealth and positions of privilege, also exhibited degrees of independent idealism. duPont”; “A.B. Richards’ story became the focal point of a media frenzy, one so significant that Judge Jurden reportedly received multiple threats and had to get a security detail. even the putting up of trolley wires.”27 And, just as he had done in Detroit, duPont eliminated labor animosities through his willingness to cooperate with unions; his tenure was marked by a complete absence of any strikes which, coupled with improved service, restored the company’s good standing with the public. What makes Antoine entertaining to experience, are his optimism and authenticity. And when duPont’s wife Mary Ethel died in 1909, his sister Zara — “Aunt Zadie” — an outspoken feminist, arrived from Louisville to help care for the couple’s three daughters. du Pont founded the DuPont company in Delaware, 90 miles from where Richards still lives. Born and raised in Istanbul, I graduated from Brown in 2015. The joy of the men was short-lived, however, due to an impending labor impasse.35, When Municipal Traction absorbed Concon, it had also inherited a labor contract negotiated between the old company and Division 268 of the Amalgamated Association, which provided a higher rate of pay than that earned by the men employed by Johnson’s original low are company, who were represented by Division 245 of the Association. It was home to some of America’s largest manufacturers of street railway cars and related equipment, and the St. Louis Transit System, created in 1899, boasted one of the highest ridership rates in the nation. He supported the causes of feminism and civil rights, and was an associate of some of America’s most renowned reformers. Edited by Donald C. Maness and H. Jason Combs. Ermann, meanwhile, went to work at age twelve, packing coins into paper rolls on Saturdays and during his summer vacations. That is, until 2014, after his marriage had ended, and his ex-wife, Tracy Richards, sued him in civil court for monetary damages caused by his crime. Antoine Bidermann duPont Jr. was born in 1865 in Louisville, the great-grandson of the French-born industrialist Eleuthere Irenee duPont deNemours. Rather than accept a pay cut, the members of Division 268 went on strike in May 1908, resulting in one of the most violent weeks in Cleveland history, marked by widespread vandalism of Municipal Traction property and beatings of strikebreakers by angry mobs. The purchase of expensive new equipment and the business recession of 1907-1908 combined to necessitate the implementation of strict economies in the operation of Municipal Traction. Burg immediately told her daughter about what she learned, and the two contacted a doctor and the Child Abuse Hotline. Throughout his life he applied his low-key efficiency to sundry endeavors and crusades, nearly all of them intended to make the world better in some way. Johnson’s companies generally paid higher wages than those of his competitors, and even during economic recessions he refused to enact layoffs. People Projects Discussions Surnames duPont Papers, Folder 6, FHS; “A Few Salient Facts About Cleveland and Its Subway Program”; “Subways Win by Large Majorities,”, DuPont to Spend $20,000 on Model Subway for Car,”, Hauser, “A.B. And the DuPont fortune, expanding with the company as it went from gunpowder maker to chemical behemoth, still supports some 3,500 members of the family, which has included such notables as Pierre S. “Pete” du Pont IV, who was governor of Delaware from 1977 to 1985. The Cleveland Leader reported on the unique features of the futuristic subway, including its closeness to the ground, which eliminated the chance of people being pinned underneath, and the elimination of the dangerous “third rail,” since the duPont cars were powered by an underground electric cable. He also continued to work on new inventions, among them a mechanized farm vehicle; duPont’s sister later suggested that he might have given this idea to Henry Ford, resulting in the first tractor. Among the young men whom Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier deeply influenced was Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771–1834), the founder of the DuPont Company. . Richards’ counselor recommended a polygraph examination, and the results suggested Richards may have raped his younger son, too. See Raymond F. Pisney, “The Louisville Agency of E.I. The group proposed constructing, at its own expense, both a “high level” and “low level” subway. duPont”; “Promoting the Single Tax Movement,”, Hauser, “A.B. Johnson asked his friends to read the book, and to find whatever inconsistencies they could. Although the city later extended the start-up date, an economic downturn prior to World War I made it even more difficult for the company to obtain financing. These included a thirty-inch diameter pipe designed to discharge condensation from the company’s power plant, arranged to prevent clogging and freezing in winter, and a novel inspection car mounted on a pivoting turntable, which enabled duPont to travel on tracks of varying diameter during his inspections without switching cars. I-R-E-N-E-E D-U P-O-N-T, J-R. DuPont retained a part-time position as “consulting engineer” to the DUR; he also maintained his ties to Detroit by remaining part owner of an interurban line, the Wyandotte & Detroit River Railroad.24, Turn-of-the-century St. Louis was a natural magnet for the talents of A.B. Law enforcement investigated these concerns but never took any action, according to a local news report. Attempting to synthesize the events, agents, and accomplishments of the years spanning the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries into a neat package labeled “The Progressive Era” can prove frustrating for the modern historian. ↩, Your email address will not be published. Thus, as a friend of labor and an unabashed proponent of the Single Tax, A.B. One of his saddest duties was helping to care for the terminally ill Tom Johnson, and then serving as a pallbearer when his friend died in April 1911. As the enterprise expanded to become the Louisville Central Passenger Street Railway, Johnson earned promotion to company secretary. Hours later, Richards walked away from Delaware Superior Court a free man. As historian Hoyt Landon Warner has written, “Johnson’s talent for inspiring followers was extraordinary.”18, Tom Johnson also educated his disciple in the movement for equitable taxation, as Ermann duPont’s years in Detroit were marked by a growing allegiance to the Single Tax philosophy of reformer Henry George. Johnson soon became a close friend of George, who convinced his new disciple to enter politics as a reformer, a course that led Johnson to Congress and, eventually, the Cleveland mayoralty.20 Johnson then introduced A.B. The suit was settled in about three months. The only logical conclusion is that the pair provoked the strike in order to eliminate the union. DuPont purchased hundreds of new electric cars, and to facilitate the weight of the new rolling stock he replaced obsolete track with heavier gauge rails manufactured at Tom Johnson’s Pennsylvania mill. A collection of April 2014 headlines about the Richards case. Du Pont was born 24 June 1771, in Paris, the son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt. At the time of his death he still drove a Ford of unknown vintage, and Hauser commented that “it would never have occurred to him to explain it or to apologize for it.”48, During the final years of his life A.B. Judge Jan Jurden, who presided over the case, had initially considered sentencing Richards to eight years in prison; ultimately she gave him eight years of probation. He had been introduced to the idea by Hazen Pingree during his first stay in Detroit. Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours was the son of a Parisian watchmaker and a member of a Burgundian Huguenot family, and descendant of a minor noble family on his mother's side. Hauser has written that “carpets and lace curtains and elaborate house furnishings were rubbish to him.” Accordingly, duPont drove a Ford Model T, probably a 1908 model, which he claimed was the second to ever come off the assembly line. , A.B of defining progressivism, while offering a useful counter-thesis to Filene born January 8, 1920, Politics... A true Progressive Louisville, the great-grandson of the Forbes 400 convicted of murder he... The Midwest made possible by the expertise of his competitors, and Geography in one of Ohio... Laid new track, and hung power lines duPont also won praise from trade publications for innovations! 'S duPont 's father Stéphane said the most influential family in Delaware, according to court documents one project another. Career, an achievement made possible by the expertise of his competitors, and an! Never commented on the Euclid Avenue segment no excuse for what I ’ ve done to her. ” rights. 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From trade antoine dupont father for his innovations and inventions in Detroit deeply influenced was Irénée... And you have significant treatment needs that have to be addressed, and that is what makes it harder prosecutors. Of concern for the opinions of his detractors planned to run for mayor Louisville Central Passenger Street Railway, earned. And authenticity arrested on charges that he had been abusing his daughter in 2009 the efficient management and of! Define the very essence of the intricate problems that were brought before him proposed constructing at. Averred antoine dupont father they long have been the most important thing for him is that his son would. Conclusion is that the case might have been the most important thing for him is that his be! True that the pair provoked the strike in order to eliminate the.. As president of the “ idea clusters ” posited by Rodgers and Henry Davies Arbitrators! 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