Charles Lewis Tiffany
Encyclopedia
Charles Lewis Tiffany founded Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany & Co. is an American jewelry and silverware company. As part of its branding, the company is strongly associated with its Tiffany Blue , which is a registered trademark.- History :...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1837. A leader in the American jewelry trade in the nineteenth century, he was known for his jewelry expertise, created the country's first retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...

 catalog, and, in 1851, he introduced the English standard of sterling silver
Sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925....

.

His son, Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau  and Aesthetic movements...

, was a decorative glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 and lamp designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

 famous for his stained glass windows and art glass.

In addition to his business, Tiffany was a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 and one of the founders of the New York Society of Fine Arts.

Life and career

Born in Killingly, Connecticut
Killingly, Connecticut
Killingly is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 16,472 at the 2000 census. It consists of the borough of Danielson and the villages of Attawaugan, Ballouville, Dayville, East Killingly, Rogers, and South Killingly....

 on February 15, 1812, Tiffany was educated in a district school and in an academy in Plainfield, Connecticut
Plainfield, Connecticut
Plainfield is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 14,619 at the 2000 census. The town comprises four villages: Plainfield , Moosup , Wauregan , and Central Village . Each village has their own respective United States Post Office and fire department...

. Starting at the age of 15, he helped manage a small general store started by his father, the owner of a cotton-manufacturing company. Charles Tiffany later worked at the office of his father's mill. The Tiffany family descended from Humphrey Tiffany, who had lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1660.
In 1837, with $1,000 borrowed from his father, Tiffany and a school friend, John B. Young, set up a small stationery and gift shop in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Their first three days in business brought them only $4.38 in total sales, but two years later they were still in business, selling glassware, porcelain, cutlery, clocks and jewelry. On November 30, 1839, he married John B. Young's sister, Harriet Olivia Avery Young (1816–1897) with whom he had six children, Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau  and Aesthetic movements...

, Charles Lewis Tiffany, Jr. (1842–1847), Annie Olivia Tiffany (Mrs. Alfred Mitchell; mother-in-law to Hiram Bingham III
Hiram Bingham III
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham III, was an academic, explorer, treasure hunter and politician from the United States. He made public the existence of the Quechua citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers...

)(1844–1937), Louise Harriet Tiffany (1856–1937), Henry Charles Tiffany (1858–1859),and Burnett Young Tiffany (1860–1945).

The store expanded in 1841 and changed its name to Tiffany, Young and Ellis. It established a reputation for selling only the finest goods and specialized in Bohemian glass
Bohemian glass
Bohemian glass, or Bohemia crystal, is a decorative glass produced in regions of Bohemia and Silesia, now in the current state of the Czech Republic, since the 13th century. Oldest archaeology excavations of glass-making sites date to around 1250 and are located in the Lusatian Mountains of...

 and porcelain. It also began manufacturing its own jewelry. In the early 1850s, the company was reorganized under the name Tiffany and Company and opened branches in Paris (1850) and London (1868). The store also relocated uptown to a Fifth Avenue location in that decade.

Tiffany was terribly embarrassed in an 1872 diamond and gemstone hoax
Diamond hoax of 1872
The diamond hoax of 1872 was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American diamond deposit to prominent businessmen in San Francisco and New York...

 perpetrated by Philip Arnold
Philip Arnold
Philip Arnold was a confidence trickster from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and the brains behind the legendary diamond hoax of 1872, which fooled people into investing in a phony diamond mining operation...

 that cost investors more than half a million dollars.

One of the great achievements in his life was when he teamed up with Thomas Edison and together they created foot lights and other ways of electrically lighting theaters. As a result of this, Broadway and other shows became more popular during that time.

The firm acquired and sold some of the French crown jewels
Crown jewels
Crown jewels are jewels or artifacts of the reigning royal family of their respective country. They belong to monarchs and are passed to the next sovereign to symbolize the right to rule. They may include crowns, sceptres, orbs, swords, rings, and other objects...

 in 1887, firmly establishing its reputation.

At his death in Yonkers, New York
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...

 on February 18, 1902 at the age of 90, Charles Tiffany's company was capitalized at more than $2 million and acknowledged as the most prominent jewelry company in North America.

External links

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