Maurice Wertheim
Encyclopedia
Maurice Wertheim was an American investment banker, chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player, chess patron, environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...

, and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

. He financed much of the activity in American chess during the 1940s. Wertheim founded Wertheim & Co.
Wertheim & Co.
Wertheim & Co. was an investment firm founded in 1927 by Maurice Wertheim and Joseph Klingenstein, who met when they worked together at Hallgarten & Company...

 in 1927.

Biography

Maurice Wertheim graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1906. He inherited nearly half a million dollars from his father, who had been successful with the United Cigar Manufacturers Company. He entered the investment banking field in 1915 in New York, and founded his own firm Maurice Wertheim and Company
Wertheim & Co.
Wertheim & Co. was an investment firm founded in 1927 by Maurice Wertheim and Joseph Klingenstein, who met when they worked together at Hallgarten & Company...

 in 1927, developing a very successful business in mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...

, and becoming wealthy in the process. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he served as a dollar-a-year man
One-dollar salary
Several top executives in large businesses receive a salary of one dollar. In place of a salary, the executives receive stock options. In the United States, this approach impacts personal tax liability because although stock and option grants are taxed at federal income rates, they are exempt from...

 on the War Production Board in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

.

Wertheim was a reasonably strong amateur chess player, who enjoyed the game, and put a lot of effort into his correspondence chess
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...

 play. He was also interested in the theatre, fishing, nature conservancy, and art. He donated 2000 acres (8.1 km²) on eastern Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

 to the United States government in 1947; this became the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge
Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge
The Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge is located on the south shore of Long Island and is one of the undeveloped estuary systems on Long Island. Its main purpose was to organize the refuge so it would protect the Carmans River Estuary for all migratory birds. Wertheim hosts a variety of habitats...

. He arranged for the donation of his collection of French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Impressionist paintings to the Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....

 at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 upon his death.

His main contributions to American chess were as a patron and organizer. He financed the 1941 U.S. Chess Championship
U.S. Chess Championship
The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...

 match between Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

 and I.A. Horowitz, which was won by Reshevsky. He assisted financially the Manhattan Chess Club
Manhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States . The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen players; membership later reached into the hundreds before the club ended its existence in 2002...

 with a move to better quarters in 1941.

Wertheim conceived the idea for the 1946 chess match between the United States and 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....

 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, convinced the U.S. State Department that it would make a difference in thawing the Cold War
Cold 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...

, and financed it, paying for the trans-Atlantic travel and hospitality upon arrival.

After his death from a heart attack in 1950, a memorial Maurice Wertheim chess tournament was organized in 1951 in New York in his memory; it was won by Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

.

Personal life

He married Alma Morgenthau in 1912, and they had three daughters, one of whom was the historian Barbara W. Tuchman. Alma died in 1974.

He married Ruth White in March 1930, but they had no children and divorced in 1935.

He married again in 1944, and he and his third wife Cecile Berlage deeded 1800 acres of land straddling the Carmans River
Carmans River
The Carmans River is a long river in Brookhaven in Suffolk County on Long Island.It is one of the four largest rivers on Long Island and is similar to other Long Island rivers in that is totally groundwater generated , although a lake did exist long ago. Almost all of the river is specifically...

to the people of America. The land was originally purchased as a hunting retreat and known as "Stealaway." It is now the core of the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge.
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