Cyrus S. Eaton
Encyclopedia
Cyrus Stephen Eaton was a Canadian-born investment banker, businessman and philanthropist in the United States
, with a career that spanned seventy years.
For decades one of the most powerful financiers in the American midwest, Cyrus Eaton was also a colorful and often-controversial figure. He was chiefly known for his longevity in business, for his opposition to the dominance of eastern financiers in the America of his day, for his occasionally ruthless financial manipulations, and for his outspoken criticism of America’s Cold War brinkmanship. He funded and helped organize the first Pugwash Conferences on World Peace, in 1955.
in Cumberland County
, Nova Scotia
, Canada, in 1883. Cyrus Eaton's family roots can be traced back to one John Eaton, a Puritan English farmer who left Warwickshire, Great Britain, and arrived at Massachusetts Colony, ca. 1640, and to one David Eaton, a direct descendant of John, who left Connecticut in 1761 to join the so-called New England Planters
who responded to a call to re-populate farmlands in the English colony of Nova Scotia left uninhabited by the expulsion of the Acadian French. On his mother’s side, Cyrus was a descendant of McPhersons, who were United Empire Loyalists
and chose to leave New England after the American Revolution
in favour of an uncertain future in the struggling northern colony.
Cyrus was raised on a farm near the hamlet of Pugwash Junction, Nova Scotia, where his father, Joseph Howe Eaton, also had lumber holdings, ran a small general store and functioned as district Post Master.
, Ontario
, a preparatory school for the Baptist
-affiliated McMaster University
, which was then situated in Toronto
. Intending to follow his mother's ambition for him and become a Baptist preacher, he enrolled at McMaster in 1901 where he with concentrated on philosophy and finance, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1905.
During his first summer vacation from McMaster, Cyrus went to work in a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio
, where his popular, dedicated uncle, Rev. Charles Aubrey Eaton
, led a congregation of the wealthy that included John D. Rockefeller
. A meeting at a dinner party led to an invitation for Cyrus to work for the summer as the elderly businessman's assistant at his lakeside Cleveland estate, and the experience changed Eaton's direction in life away from a religious vocation toward a career in business. Rockefeller advised him to concentrate his efforts, as he himself had done, on the resource industries, and when Cyrus graduated from university his first job was with a Rockefeller affiliated company, the East Ohio Gas and Power Company, which was laying gas mains in Cleveland.
After a period as a construction crew supervisor and troubleshooter for the public relations department, his negotiating skills earned him an opportunity to represent a syndicate of investors associated with Rockefeller who were buying up urban utility franchises in the American Midwest and the Prairie Provinces of Canada. This work led directly to his first substantial opportunity.
, which needed a reliable year-round source of power for street lighting because their current supply, from a hydroelectric facility, stalled each winter when the river froze. In October, 1907, on the same day that Eaton finalized arrangements with the mayor of Brandon for a franchise to supply the town with electric power from a steam generated power plant, a financial panic struck American banks, and for a brief period, American investment money was in such short supply, that the confidence of Eaton's backers was shaken. The City of Brandon, however, had issued a franchise, and wanted something done. Eaton seized the opportunity, and with the blessing of his previous backers, borrowed enough to take over the franchise himself. Within a year, the Brandon Gas and Power Company was generating power to light Brandon's streets, and also producing capital for Eaton’s next venture. He later sold the Canadian company for a considerable profit.
Rockefeller offered him employment with Standard Oil
in New York. Cyrus declined the offer so that he could go into business for himself.
As a result of this, and because of his success with Brandon Gas and Power, House introduced his son-in-law to an important Cleveland utility and traction magnate, George Taylor Bishop. Bishop took a personal liking to Cyrus, and invited him to join his office to learn more about the 'art' of financing electric utilities. Over the years, as he worked with Bishop on consolidations of utility holdings, the 'Eaton interests’ grew into controlling stakes in a significant number of utility operating companies.
The Eatons began a family with the birth of a daughter in 1909, the first of seven children, and in 1912, the year Cyrus Eaton became an American citizen, he and Bishop incorporated one of the country's first utility holding companies, Continental Gas and Electric, of the state of Delaware. The Eatons used part of their growing fortune to build a mansion on Euclid Avenue
, and Cyrus purchased a country estate near his friend Bishop's, with a one hundred and fifty year old farmhouse and over 300 acres (1.2 km²) of farmland in Northfield, Ohio
, south of Cleveland.
In 1916 became a partner in Otis and Company, a major investment banking firm with head office in Cleveland and branches in New York
and Chicago
.
With hundreds of thousands of new investors turning to American stock markets, an early form of the mutual fund, called the investment trust, was becoming a popular way for investment managers and investment bankers to attract and to absorb new pools of available capital. Investment trusts fed on investors who lacked expertise of their own, and were eager to place their money and confidence in the hands of managers with a reputation for success. The Eaton group certainly had that, and in 1921, Eaton ventured beyond Continental Gas and Electric, the utility holding company he and a group of other investors controlled, to create and sponsor an investment trust with a similar name, Continental Shares Ltd., listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The ultimate design was to use the power vested in him as Chairman of the Board and board member of many important corporations to challenge Wall Street's hegemony and exert his own control over financial decision making in the region.
Under the utility holding company format, a limited group of wealthy investors usually pooled resources to invest in operating utilities and other utility holding companies they could control and manipulate for their own profit. However, because of a history in America of abusing and mismanaging their prerogatives, from the public point of view, privately held utility company operators and utility holding company managers were facing increased competition from public sector power providers, and as well, the prospect of greater government regulation. Both factors were reducing the attractiveness of these investments in the eyes of the wider public, and promising to hamper their future profitability. The investment trust was founded on a wider mandate. It raised capital from investors no longer content with clipping railroad coupons or cashing predictable utilities dividend checks. It appealed to investors who were willing to risk some of their new affluence on a chance to participate in the booming profitability of the wider American business community in the enlarged postwar economy. It offered shares in a new form of holding company, and it managed that money on behalf of the investors by trading in a diversity of important new industries that would hopefully raise share values and pay dividends. By using 'other people's money,' the organizers and managers of these funds obtained positions of power and control in the market which was out of all proportion to the magnitude of their personal investments. As trusted managers who retained all decision making power, they could engineer stock market coups at minimal risk to their own capital, and derive day-to-day income from management fees. As well, it was usual for the investment bankers who sponsored these trusts to derive income from the banking and management sides.
In this case, Eaton used his dominant position as Chairman of the Board of Continental Shares to capture banking business for Otis and Co., his investment bank, to include substantial fees for consulting and for underwriting the sale stock and bond issues.
In addition to electrical power, his investment trust purchased dominant positions in the Cleveland-based paint company, Sherwin-Williams, the world's major supplier of auto coatings, and in Goodyear
and Firestone
, Ohio-based world leaders in the manufacture of tires and rubber.
His next major target was steel, and he was particularly interested in controlling companies that produced the strong, light steels used in auto manufacture. These plans led to a series of rapid purchases and mergers of several medium sized steel companies in Ohio and Pennsylvania
, culminating in the merger that formed a new company, Republic Steel
, at the time of its founding the third-largest steel producer in the United States.
The stock market crash
of the 1930s caused Eaton a major, though temporary, setback, and the conditions that prevailed during the slow recovery of his and America's fortunes forced him to scale back his financial and industrial ambitions permanently. As well, it was during this period of the late 1920s and early 1930s that Eaton first gained a reputation in the English-speaking world for financial daring and for controversial decision making. In later years he would turn this reputation from celebrity to notoriety, and use it to assist him in focusing public attention on important issues, such as détente with Russia
, nuclear disarmament
and the dangers inherent in American militarism.
Eaton's many financial interests included organizing the mergers that formed Republic Steel Corporation and the Chessie System
. He assumed the helm of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
(C&O) in the mid-1950s when his colleague Robert Ralph Young of the Alleghany Corporation had to step down from the C&O to make a bid for the New York Central Railroad
. Once the C&O had obtained control of the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Chessie System had been created, he largely retired to take care of his philanthropic interests.
. He became particularly controversial for engaging in personal diplomacy between the United States and communist countries in an effort to promote friendlier relations and more trade between the ideologically opposed segments of the world’s economy.
Eaton also gave personal and financial support to efforts to limit the nuclear arms race
, and was involved in founding and financing the original Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
, which took their name from Eaton’s hometown of Pugwash, Nova Scotia
where the first meeting was held in July 1957 at his summer estate overlooking the Northumberland Strait
.
The Pugwash Conferences were ultimately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1995. Eaton's 1950s efforts at rapprochement with the Soviet Union
won him the 1960 Lenin Peace Prize
. He was dubbed "the Kremlin's favorite capitalist". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1958.
Eaton had an estate in Blandford, Nova Scotia
and create a wildlife reserve on the Aspotogan Peninsula
.
Eaton died at his home in Northfield, Ohio
at age 95.
In 1994, a residential developer bought Eaton's estate in Sagamore Hills, Ohio, a village 15 miles (24.1 km) southeast of Cleveland, Ohio
and 20 miles (32.2 km) north of Akron, Ohio
. The Eaton Estate had an area measuring approximately 200 acre (0.809372 km²) and the developer constructed over 300 houses ranging in prices of $250,000 to about $500,000. Street names in the development called "Eaton Estates" include Pugwash, McMaster, and Republic as an homage to Cyrus Eaton.
The elementary school in Pugwash is named Cyrus Eaton Elementary School in honor of him.
Lee Eaton Elementary School in Northfield, Ohio
was named after the daughter (Lee) of Cyrus Eaton who donated 12 acres (48,562.3 m²) of land for the school in memory of his daughter. In his dedication speech Mr. Eaton stated, “I hope the children of this school will make the most of their opportunity to know the best of both the country and the city”.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with a career that spanned seventy years.
For decades one of the most powerful financiers in the American midwest, Cyrus Eaton was also a colorful and often-controversial figure. He was chiefly known for his longevity in business, for his opposition to the dominance of eastern financiers in the America of his day, for his occasionally ruthless financial manipulations, and for his outspoken criticism of America’s Cold War brinkmanship. He funded and helped organize the first Pugwash Conferences on World Peace, in 1955.
Nova Scotian youth
Cyrus Eaton was born on a farm near the village of PugwashPugwash, Nova Scotia
-Notable residents:Notable current and former residents of Pugwash include:*Charles Aubrey Eaton , clergyman and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing the from 1925–1933, and the from 1933-1953....
in Cumberland County
Cumberland County, Nova Scotia
Cumberland County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.-History:The name Cumberland was applied by Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton to the captured Fort Beauséjour on June 18, 1755 in honour of the third son of King George II, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, victor at...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada, in 1883. Cyrus Eaton's family roots can be traced back to one John Eaton, a Puritan English farmer who left Warwickshire, Great Britain, and arrived at Massachusetts Colony, ca. 1640, and to one David Eaton, a direct descendant of John, who left Connecticut in 1761 to join the so-called New England Planters
New England Planters
The New England Planters were settlers from the New England colonies who responded to invitations by the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, to settle lands left vacant by the Bay of Fundy Campaign of the Acadian Expulsion...
who responded to a call to re-populate farmlands in the English colony of Nova Scotia left uninhabited by the expulsion of the Acadian French. On his mother’s side, Cyrus was a descendant of McPhersons, who were United Empire Loyalists
United Empire Loyalists
The name United Empire Loyalists is an honorific given after the fact to those American Loyalists who resettled in British North America and other British Colonies as an act of fealty to King George III after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War and prior to the Treaty of Paris...
and chose to leave New England after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
in favour of an uncertain future in the struggling northern colony.
Cyrus was raised on a farm near the hamlet of Pugwash Junction, Nova Scotia, where his father, Joseph Howe Eaton, also had lumber holdings, ran a small general store and functioned as district Post Master.
Education and a new start
Cyrus Eaton left Nova Scotia at sixteen for Woodstock College in WoodstockWoodstock, Ontario
Woodstock is a city and the county seat of Oxford County in Southern Ontario, Canada. Woodstock is located 128 km southwest of Toronto, north of Highway 401 along the historic Thames River...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, a preparatory school for the Baptist
Baptists in Canada
-Statistics and changes:According to the Canada 2001 Census, the number of people in Canada who identify themselves as Baptist is 729,470, about 2.5% of the population, an increase of about 10% in the 10 years since the 1991 census ....
-affiliated McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
, which was then situated in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. Intending to follow his mother's ambition for him and become a Baptist preacher, he enrolled at McMaster in 1901 where he with concentrated on philosophy and finance, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1905.
During his first summer vacation from McMaster, Cyrus went to work in a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, where his popular, dedicated uncle, Rev. Charles Aubrey Eaton
Charles Aubrey Eaton
Charles Aubrey Eaton was a Canadian-born clergyman and politician who rose to lead prominent congregations at Natick, Massachusetts, 1893–1895; Bloor Street, Toronto, 1895–1901; Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, 1901–1909; and at Madison Avenue, New York City, 1909-1919...
, led a congregation of the wealthy that included John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
. A meeting at a dinner party led to an invitation for Cyrus to work for the summer as the elderly businessman's assistant at his lakeside Cleveland estate, and the experience changed Eaton's direction in life away from a religious vocation toward a career in business. Rockefeller advised him to concentrate his efforts, as he himself had done, on the resource industries, and when Cyrus graduated from university his first job was with a Rockefeller affiliated company, the East Ohio Gas and Power Company, which was laying gas mains in Cleveland.
After a period as a construction crew supervisor and troubleshooter for the public relations department, his negotiating skills earned him an opportunity to represent a syndicate of investors associated with Rockefeller who were buying up urban utility franchises in the American Midwest and the Prairie Provinces of Canada. This work led directly to his first substantial opportunity.
Brandon, Manitoba
One of their targets was the Canadian city of Brandon, ManitobaBrandon, Manitoba
Brandon is the second largest city in Manitoba, Canada, and is located in the southwestern area of the province. Brandon is the largest city in the Westman region of Manitoba. The city is located along the Assiniboine River. Spruce Woods Provincial Park and CFB Shilo are a relatively short distance...
, which needed a reliable year-round source of power for street lighting because their current supply, from a hydroelectric facility, stalled each winter when the river froze. In October, 1907, on the same day that Eaton finalized arrangements with the mayor of Brandon for a franchise to supply the town with electric power from a steam generated power plant, a financial panic struck American banks, and for a brief period, American investment money was in such short supply, that the confidence of Eaton's backers was shaken. The City of Brandon, however, had issued a franchise, and wanted something done. Eaton seized the opportunity, and with the blessing of his previous backers, borrowed enough to take over the franchise himself. Within a year, the Brandon Gas and Power Company was generating power to light Brandon's streets, and also producing capital for Eaton’s next venture. He later sold the Canadian company for a considerable profit.
Rockefeller offered him employment with Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
in New York. Cyrus declined the offer so that he could go into business for himself.
Continental Gas & Electric Corporation, Delaware
Eaton had become an investor and an operator in one of the fastest growing industries on the continent. From 1900 through 1920 the number of private electric systems in the U.S. grew from approximately 2,800 to 6,500. There were plenty of opportunities for imaginative entrepreneurs, and Eaton's next big opportunity came to him through the good offices of his father-in-law, Augustus F. House, a distinguished Cleveland physician and banker whose daughter Margaret had become Eaton's wife in 1909. Dr. House had profited, with Eaton's assistance, from the merger of Lakeshore Banking and Trust, a bank he founded, with Cleveland Trust.As a result of this, and because of his success with Brandon Gas and Power, House introduced his son-in-law to an important Cleveland utility and traction magnate, George Taylor Bishop. Bishop took a personal liking to Cyrus, and invited him to join his office to learn more about the 'art' of financing electric utilities. Over the years, as he worked with Bishop on consolidations of utility holdings, the 'Eaton interests’ grew into controlling stakes in a significant number of utility operating companies.
The Eatons began a family with the birth of a daughter in 1909, the first of seven children, and in 1912, the year Cyrus Eaton became an American citizen, he and Bishop incorporated one of the country's first utility holding companies, Continental Gas and Electric, of the state of Delaware. The Eatons used part of their growing fortune to build a mansion on Euclid Avenue
Euclid Avenue
Euclid Avenue is a street in Cleveland, Ohio. It received nationwide attention from the 1860s to the 1920s for its beauty and wealth, including a string of mansions that came to be known as Millionaire's Row. There are several theaters, banks, and churches along Euclid, as well as Cleveland's...
, and Cyrus purchased a country estate near his friend Bishop's, with a one hundred and fifty year old farmhouse and over 300 acres (1.2 km²) of farmland in Northfield, Ohio
Northfield, Ohio
Northfield is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,827 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Northfield is located at ....
, south of Cleveland.
In 1916 became a partner in Otis and Company, a major investment banking firm with head office in Cleveland and branches in New York
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...
and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Continental Shares Ltd.
Under the Eaton/Bishop management, Continental Gas and Electric grew eventually to be one of the largest utility holding companies in North America. But its success marked just the beginning of Eaton's ambitious plans. At that time he was most active, Cleveland was the center of the wealthiest industrial area in North America, yet it was, he felt, unfortunate that the financiers of Wall Street in New York controlled so much of the industrial decision making at the local level in Cleveland, and throughout the region. Eaton thought that local financiers had a better understanding of the local economy and could better respond to the region's economic development needs if they had a greater degree of autonomy. The expansion experienced by the post war American economy provided Eaton with the opportunity to realize his goals. His strategy was to use the investment trust to gain financial control from Wall Street.With hundreds of thousands of new investors turning to American stock markets, an early form of the mutual fund, called the investment trust, was becoming a popular way for investment managers and investment bankers to attract and to absorb new pools of available capital. Investment trusts fed on investors who lacked expertise of their own, and were eager to place their money and confidence in the hands of managers with a reputation for success. The Eaton group certainly had that, and in 1921, Eaton ventured beyond Continental Gas and Electric, the utility holding company he and a group of other investors controlled, to create and sponsor an investment trust with a similar name, Continental Shares Ltd., listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The ultimate design was to use the power vested in him as Chairman of the Board and board member of many important corporations to challenge Wall Street's hegemony and exert his own control over financial decision making in the region.
Under the utility holding company format, a limited group of wealthy investors usually pooled resources to invest in operating utilities and other utility holding companies they could control and manipulate for their own profit. However, because of a history in America of abusing and mismanaging their prerogatives, from the public point of view, privately held utility company operators and utility holding company managers were facing increased competition from public sector power providers, and as well, the prospect of greater government regulation. Both factors were reducing the attractiveness of these investments in the eyes of the wider public, and promising to hamper their future profitability. The investment trust was founded on a wider mandate. It raised capital from investors no longer content with clipping railroad coupons or cashing predictable utilities dividend checks. It appealed to investors who were willing to risk some of their new affluence on a chance to participate in the booming profitability of the wider American business community in the enlarged postwar economy. It offered shares in a new form of holding company, and it managed that money on behalf of the investors by trading in a diversity of important new industries that would hopefully raise share values and pay dividends. By using 'other people's money,' the organizers and managers of these funds obtained positions of power and control in the market which was out of all proportion to the magnitude of their personal investments. As trusted managers who retained all decision making power, they could engineer stock market coups at minimal risk to their own capital, and derive day-to-day income from management fees. As well, it was usual for the investment bankers who sponsored these trusts to derive income from the banking and management sides.
In this case, Eaton used his dominant position as Chairman of the Board of Continental Shares to capture banking business for Otis and Co., his investment bank, to include substantial fees for consulting and for underwriting the sale stock and bond issues.
United Light and Power
Cyrus Eaton’s Continental Shares, with its diversified portfolio of stocks in basic industries that stood to profit from the burgeoning auto industry, was at first extremely successful. In 1924, he parlayed its utility holdings derived from Continental Utilities into a major position in the large utility-traction conglomerate, United Light and Power.Auto industry
By 1928, Eaton had begun to carry out the final stage in a campaign to become a dominating force in many of the major links in the auto industry’s chain of supply.In addition to electrical power, his investment trust purchased dominant positions in the Cleveland-based paint company, Sherwin-Williams, the world's major supplier of auto coatings, and in Goodyear
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....
and Firestone
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900 to supply pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles. The company...
, Ohio-based world leaders in the manufacture of tires and rubber.
His next major target was steel, and he was particularly interested in controlling companies that produced the strong, light steels used in auto manufacture. These plans led to a series of rapid purchases and mergers of several medium sized steel companies in Ohio and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, culminating in the merger that formed a new company, Republic Steel
Republic Steel
Republic Steel was once the third largest steel producer in the United States.The Republic Iron and Steel Company was founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899....
, at the time of its founding the third-largest steel producer in the United States.
The stock market crash
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
of the 1930s caused Eaton a major, though temporary, setback, and the conditions that prevailed during the slow recovery of his and America's fortunes forced him to scale back his financial and industrial ambitions permanently. As well, it was during this period of the late 1920s and early 1930s that Eaton first gained a reputation in the English-speaking world for financial daring and for controversial decision making. In later years he would turn this reputation from celebrity to notoriety, and use it to assist him in focusing public attention on important issues, such as détente with Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
and the dangers inherent in American militarism.
Eaton's many financial interests included organizing the mergers that formed Republic Steel Corporation and the Chessie System
Chessie System
Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway , the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , the Western Maryland Railway , and several smaller carriers. It was incorporated in Virginia on February 26, 1973, and it acquired the C&O on June 15...
. He assumed the helm of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P...
(C&O) in the mid-1950s when his colleague Robert Ralph Young of the Alleghany Corporation had to step down from the C&O to make a bid for the New York Central Railroad
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
. Once the C&O had obtained control of the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Chessie System had been created, he largely retired to take care of his philanthropic interests.
The Pugwash Conferences
Eaton gained visibility outside the business community in the 1950s, when he became an ardent critic of the United States foreign and military policies during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. He became particularly controversial for engaging in personal diplomacy between the United States and communist countries in an effort to promote friendlier relations and more trade between the ideologically opposed segments of the world’s economy.
Eaton also gave personal and financial support to efforts to limit the nuclear arms race
Nuclear arms race
The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War...
, and was involved in founding and financing the original Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats...
, which took their name from Eaton’s hometown of Pugwash, Nova Scotia
Pugwash, Nova Scotia
-Notable residents:Notable current and former residents of Pugwash include:*Charles Aubrey Eaton , clergyman and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing the from 1925–1933, and the from 1933-1953....
where the first meeting was held in July 1957 at his summer estate overlooking the Northumberland Strait
Northumberland Strait
The Northumberland Strait is a strait in the southern part of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in eastern Canada...
.
The Pugwash Conferences were ultimately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1995. Eaton's 1950s efforts at rapprochement with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
won him the 1960 Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
. He was dubbed "the Kremlin's favorite capitalist". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1958.
Eaton had an estate in Blandford, Nova Scotia
Blandford, Nova Scotia
Blandford is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Chester Municipal District on the Aspotogan Peninsula on the Lighthouse Route...
and create a wildlife reserve on the Aspotogan Peninsula
Aspotogan Peninsula
The Aspotogan Peninsula is a peninsula in the eastern part of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, situated between St. Margarets Bay in the east from Mahone Bay in the west. The Peninsula was originally settled by second generation French immigrants on the eastside of the Aspotogan and second...
.
Eaton died at his home in Northfield, Ohio
Northfield, Ohio
Northfield is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,827 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Northfield is located at ....
at age 95.
In 1994, a residential developer bought Eaton's estate in Sagamore Hills, Ohio, a village 15 miles (24.1 km) southeast of Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
and 20 miles (32.2 km) north of Akron, Ohio
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
. The Eaton Estate had an area measuring approximately 200 acre (0.809372 km²) and the developer constructed over 300 houses ranging in prices of $250,000 to about $500,000. Street names in the development called "Eaton Estates" include Pugwash, McMaster, and Republic as an homage to Cyrus Eaton.
The elementary school in Pugwash is named Cyrus Eaton Elementary School in honor of him.
Lee Eaton Elementary School in Northfield, Ohio
Northfield, Ohio
Northfield is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,827 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Northfield is located at ....
was named after the daughter (Lee) of Cyrus Eaton who donated 12 acres (48,562.3 m²) of land for the school in memory of his daughter. In his dedication speech Mr. Eaton stated, “I hope the children of this school will make the most of their opportunity to know the best of both the country and the city”.
External links
- Bio at the Cyrus Eaton Foundation
- Cyrus Eaton interviewed by Mike WallaceMike Wallace (journalist)Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
on The Mike Wallace Interview