Henry Clay Folger
Encyclopedia
Henry Clay Folger was president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, a collector of Shakespeareana, and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period...

.

Early life

Henry Clay Folger was born in New York City to Henry C. Folger of Nantucket, MA and Eliza Jane (Clark) Folger of New York. He was a first cousin six times removed of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

 and a nephew of J. A. Folger
J. A. Folger
James Athearn Folger was the founder of the Folgers Coffee Company.-Early years:Folger was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Brown Folger and Nancy Hill. His father was a master blacksmith who had invested in a try works and bought two ships. They had nine children of which...

, the founder of Folger Coffee
Folgers
Folgers Coffee is a major brand of coffee in the United States, part of the food and beverage division of The J.M. Smucker Co.-Company history:...

.

He prepared at Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, New York. He then attended Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 where he was member of the Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi is a Greek-letter social college fraternity and the fourth-oldest continuous Greek-letter fraternity in the United States and Canada. Alpha Delta Phi was founded on October 29, 1832 by Samuel Eells at Hamilton College and includes former U.S. Presidents, Chief Justices of the U.S....

 fraternity, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1879. After Amherst, he attended Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...

 from 1879 to 1881, and was admitted to the bar in 1881.

Career

Beginning in 1881, he worked for the 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...

 trust of 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...

, getting his start in the oil business at Charles Pratt & Company, a refinery owned by Charles Pratt
Charles Pratt
Charles Pratt was a United States capitalist, businessman and philanthropist.Pratt was a pioneer of the U.S. petroleum industry, and established his kerosene refinery Astral Oil Works in Brooklyn, New York. An advertising slogan was "The holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil." He...

, the father of his Adelphi and Amherst classmate Charles Millard Pratt
Charles Millard Pratt
Charles Millard Pratt was an American oil industrialist and philanthropist.-Early life:Pratt was born and raised in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, the eldest son of Charles Pratt and Lydia Ann Richardson....

. The Pratt Company was already associated with Standard Oil at that time. After the break-up of the trust, Folger became president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York. He retired as president in 1923 and as chairman in 1928. Folger was succeeded as president by Herbert L. Pratt
Herbert L. Pratt
Herbert Lee Pratt was an American businessman and a leading figure in the United States oil industry.- Early life :...

, another son of Charles Pratt.

Family

Folger married Emily Clara Jordan
Emily Jordan Folger
Emily Jordan Folger, born Emily Clara Jordan , was the wife of Henry Clay Folger and the co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library. During her husband's lifetime, she assisted him in building the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials...

, whom he had met through the Pratts, on October 6, 1885. She was born in 1858 and was educated at Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. The Folgers had no children. They lived in rented houses in Brooklyn throughout most of their lives, but later purchased an estate in Glen Cove, Long Island.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger was an avid collector of Shakespeareana, including the largest collection of legendary First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....

 editions. Toward the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he and his wife began searching for a location for his Shakespeare library. They did not make their choice of a site on Capitol Hill public until 1928. Soon afterwards, Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 passed a resolution allowing use of the land on East Capitol Street where the Folger Shakespeare Library now stands.

The cornerstone
Cornerstone
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...

 of the library was laid in 1930, but Henry Folger died soon afterward. The bulk of his fortune was left in trust
Charitable trust
A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes, and is a more specific term than "charitable organization".-United States:...

, with Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 as administrator, for the library. With the help of additional funding from Emily Folger, the library opened on April 23, 1932, the date traditionally believed to be Shakespeare's birthday. Folger's collection of Shakespearean works is considered one of the most important resources for scholars of the playwright.

Other interests and activities

Folger was a trustee of the Hamilton Trust Company, Brooklyn, New York, and a director of Seaboard National Bank in New York. In 1914 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Amherst
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

. Outside of work, his great interests were his Shakespeare collection and, in later life, golf, which he often played with Rockefeller. He was a trustee of the Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn and established the Shakespeare Garden
Shakespeare garden
A Shakespeare garden is a themed garden that cultivates plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. In English-speaking countries, particularly the United States, these are often public gardens associated with parks, universities, and Shakespeare festivals...

 at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, and Park Slope neighborhoods, the garden includes a number of specialty "gardens within the Garden," plant collections, and the Steinhardt Conservatory,...

.

Writings

Folger wrote Petroleum, its Production and Products and articles on Shakespeare and Shakespeareana.

External references

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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