- Co-Founder and First President of General Electric
Biography
Charles A. Coffin was born 31 December 1844 in Fairfield, Somerset County, Maine, United States to Albert Coffin (1812-1877) and Anstrus Varney (1815-) and died 14 July 1926 of unspecified causes. He married Caroline Louise Russell (1845-) 25 September 1872 in Lynn, Essex County.
He was born in Fairfield, Maine, the son of Albert Coffin and his wife Anstrus (Varney).
He moved to join his uncle Charles E. Coffin at his shoe company in Lynn, Massachusetts at the age 18, where he spent the next twenty years. Eventually he established his own shoe factory named Coffin and Clough in Lynn.[1]
In 1883, he was approached by another Lynn businessman, Silas A. Barton, to bring to town a struggling electric company from New Britain, Connecticut, finance it and to lead it.[2] With the engineering work of Elihu Thomson, Coffin was able to build the company, renamed Thomson-Houston up to be an equal to Thomas Edison's companies. During this time they deployed power plants in the South, including two in Atlanta, Georgia to run the electric lighting and in 1889, Joel Hurt's electric streetcar line.[3]
When General Electric was formed from Thomson-Houston and Edison's companies, Coffin was its first chief executive officer. The company was tested quickly during the Panic of 1893, where Coffin negotiated with New York banks to advance money in exchange for GE-owned utility stocks.
He established a duopoly of important electric patents with Westinghouse Electric in the late 1890s, and in 1901 established a research laboratory for the company.[4] Suggested by Charles Proteus Steinmetz, this was the first industrial research lab in the US.[5] He supported GE engineers in the adaptation and development of the Curtis steam turbine, which advanced electric power generation. He retired from the board in 1922, and retained a large amount of GE stock. Upon his death in 1926, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Marriage and Family
He married Caroline Russell of Holbrook, Massachusetts and had three children.
Children
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Edward Russell Coffin (1873-1907) | |||
| Jennie M Coffin (1875-) | |||
| Alice Storrs Coffin (1878-) | |||
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Abby May Coffin (1841-1854) | |||
| Charles Albert Coffin (1844-1926) | 31 December 1844 Fairfield, Somerset County, Maine, United States | 14 July 1926 | Caroline Louise Russell (1845-) |
References
- Genealogy of the Early Generations of the Coffin Family of New England - 1870 work by Silvanus Jenkins Macy (Author), Nathaniel Wheeler Coffin (Author), William S. Appleton (Author) - This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
- wikipedia:en:Charles A. Coffin - Wikipedia
- Charles Coffin - disambiguation
- Coffin Family of Boston - Boston Brahmin
- Coffin in Essex County, Massachusetts
- Charles A. Coffin Archived March 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
- "Coffin". Time Magazine. 1926-07-26. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
- Garrett, Franklin, Atlanta and Its Environs, 1954, Vol.II, p.189
- Charles A. Coffin | 20th Century American Leaders Database | Leadership at www.hbs.edu
- About Us - History Archived 2009-02-23 at the Wayback Machine.
- Charles A. Coffin Biography at www.ge.com