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Oscar Ferdinand Mayer, Meat Products Founder
Facts and Events
About Oscar F. Mayer
Oscar Ferdinand Mayer (March 29, 1859 – March 11, 1955) was a German American who founded the processed-meat firm Oscar Mayer that bears his name.
Early Life and Career
Mayer was born in Kösingen (now part of Neresheim), Württemberg, Germany, where his family had been foresters and ministers for generations. He emigrated to the United States as a teenager and moved to Detroit to live with a cousin. He worked in that city's meat market and moved to Chicago in 1876 when his cousin moved there. Mayer found work at a meat market on Chicago's North Side and started a butcher and sausage-making shop of his own in 1883, when he was 24-years-old. Five years later, the proprietor who owned the store refused to renew Mayer's lease, hoping that he could profit from Mayer's business success. Pushed out on his own, Mayer bought a property and constructed a two-story building for his business and family. He married the former Louise Greiner of Munich in 1887, and their only son was born in that building.
With the company's continued growth, it became a sponsor of such events as polka bands and the German exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. The company had grown to 43 employees in 1900, offering meat delivered across the city of Chicago and its suburbs. Capitalizing on an industry trend, the company started using its own brands for its meat products in 1904 and was one of the earliest participants in the Food Safety and Inspection Service, created under the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, to verify the contents of its products. By the time of his death, the business named after himself had grown to 9,000 employees, with facilities in Davenport, Iowa, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
In 1912, Mayer founded the Lincoln Park Gun Club with P.K. Wrigley, Sewell Avery, and other prominent Chicagoans
Death
After being ill for six weeks, he died in his sleep at age 95 on March 11, 1955, at his home in Chicago, with his son and successor Oscar G. Mayer, Sr. and his three daughters at his bedside. His wife died in 1931.
His great-grandson and heir Chuck Collins is an economist and philanthropist.
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
Oscar Ferdinand Mayer (March 29, 1859 – March 11, 1955) was a German American who founded the processed-meat firm Oscar Mayer that bears his name.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ancestry.com. Public Member Trees: (Note: not considered a reliable primary source).
- United States. 1900 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T623).
1900 United States Federal Census
Name: Oscar T Mayer [Oscar F Meyer] Age: 41 Birth Date: Mar 1859 Birthplace: Germany Home in 1900: Chicago Ward 22, Cook, Illinois Race: White Gender: Male Immigration Year: 1873 Relation to Head of House: Head Marital Status: Married Spouse's Name: Louisa Mayer Marriage Year: 1887 Years Married: 13 Father's Birthplace: Germany Mother's Birthplace: Germany Household Members: Name Age Oscar T Mayer 41 Louisa Mayer 36 Oscar Meyer 12 Frieda Meyer 10 Louisa Meyer 8 Elsie Meyer 6 Eugenie Meyer 3 Max Mayer 40 Olga Tunce 20 Tina Rahdemachor 26
- Find A Grave.
Oscar F. Mayer Birth: Mar. 29, 1859 Neresheim Ostalbkreis Baden-Württemberg, Germany Death: Mar. 11, 1955 Chicago Cook County Illinois, USA
Business Magnate. He was the founder of the Oscar Mayer Company, which became one of the most successful and enduring meat and cold cut production companies in the United States. Born in Germany, in 1873, at the age of 14, the family grocery business failed, and he immigrated to the United States with his cousin. Settling in Detroit, Michigan, he answered an ad and took a job as an apprentice with George Weber's Retail Meat Market. He stayed there for three years until 1876, when the he moved to Chicago, Illinois to work at the Kohlhammer Meat Market, and also at the Armour Meat Packing Company (located in the stockyards). In 1883, Oscar and his brother, who had established himself in Nurnberg, Germany as a wurstmacher (sausage maker) and ham curer, rented the Kolling Meat Market on Sedgwick Street, in the North side of Chicago. The business became so successful that, in 1888, the landlord refused to renew their rent so that he could foreclose and operate the business himself (he failed within a year). The brothers re-opened two blocks away in a larger building they had built, with living quarters above the storefront. The store opened as "Oscar Mayer and Brother Company", specializing in sausages. They employed another brother as well as salesmen and delivery agents to serve the entire city of Chicago and suburbs. Oscar Mayer sponsored several polka bands in and around Chicago, and in 1893, he sponsored the German exposition at the Chicago World's Fair. By 1900, they had 43 employees and Oscar Mayer became the first company to identify their sausages with a brand name (other meat packers had remained anonymous). In 1919 the company expanded again by acquiring a meatpacking plant in Madison, Wisconsin, and incorporated as Oscar Mayer and Company. Ten years after that, the company patented sliced bacon as a product line, and also adopted the trademark yellow paper ring wrapper around its products. The company offices relocated to Madison in 1919, but maintained a plant in Chicago, where Oscar continued to live. He was an early and innovative user of advertising in the meat business, and became the first meat packer to use newspaper advertisements, and also color newspaper advertisements. One of the iconic symbols of the company - the "Wienermobile" - was introduced in 1936, and, later, the Wiener Whistle was created in 1951. He was an early advocate of television advertising, which he began running in 1950, and proved to be a valuable marketing tool. Oscar Mayer remained active in the company until his death in 1955, serving as chairman of the board until the end. He died shortly before his ninety-sixth birthday.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=712
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