Armour - the Other Guy

Philip Danforth Armour was born in 1832 and raised in Connecticut, but like his rival Swift, Armour preferred the West where he panned for gold during the California Gold Rush.  Armour used the money he got from the Gold Rush to open a grocery business, surprisingly in the Midwest - first in Cincinnati and then in Milwaukee.  With the money he made from the grocery business, he went into the meat packing business.

During the Civil War, the price of a barrel of pork was as high as $40 a barrel.  Armour knew that after the war was over and the Union won, the price would plummet, so he went to New York to sell pork futures.  Armour bought pork for $18 a barrel making a hefty profit on the $30 he had sold it for.  That $2 million became the base of his meat packing industry.

From 1875 onward, Armour and Swift's businesses ran parallel to each other.  Both were in Chicago, both had disassembly plants to process their meat and both used all parts of the animal - believing that there should be no waste.  Armour used refrigerated rail cars for transport as well - his Armour Refrigerator Line was founded in 1883.  By 1893 his estimated worth was $110 million.

Armour and Swift were both generous philanthropists.  Armour believed in education, founding the Armour Institute of Technology.  He said, "I can turn revenue into boys and girls and they will go on forever."  His co-educational institution became the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Both Armour and Swift's reputation suffered as a result of tainted beef shipped to the troops during the Spanish American War.  The clinically treated beef resulted in an investigation  in 1889, but no verdict was ever given.  Some claimed that Armour bribed the panel to which Armour spent the rest of his life defending his innocence.  His reputation never recovered.

Armour died of pneumonia in 1901 in Chicago leaving one son, J. Ogden Armour who became President of Armour and Company, expanding it worldwide and leaving a legacy of over $1 billion.

Next time...Corned meat
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On October 15, 1917, Mata Hari is executed for espionage by a French firing squad outside of Paris.  She was the archetype of female spy who first came to Paris in 1905 where she became a an exotic Asian dancer.  Her real name was Margarentha Geertruida Zelle.  Her catalog of high ranking officers during World War 1 provided her with information that she carried back to the Germans.