Benjamin Guggenheim was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 businessman. He died aboard when the ship sank near Cape Race, Newfoundland.
Benjamin Guggenheim was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, the fifth of seven sons of the wealthy mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim

Meyer Guggenheim

Meyer Guggenheim was the patriarch of what became known as the Guggenheim family. He was born in Lengnau, Aargau, Switzerland, was of German Jewish ancestry and emigrated to the United States in 1847...

 (1828–1905) and Barbara Myers (1834–1900). In 1894, he married Florette Seligman (1870–1937), daughter of James Seligman, a senior partner in the firm J & W Seligman, and Rosa Seligman née Content.