Arthur Ryerson

Arthur Larned Ryerson (born January 12, 1851 in Chicago , Illinois , USA ; † April 15, 1912 in the North Atlantic when the Titanic sank ) was an American lawyer , businessman , steel tycoon and president of the steel manufacturer Joseph T. Ryerson & Sons , Inc. founded by his father.

Life

Ryerson came from a prominent and wealthy Chicago family. He was the second of five children of Joseph Turner Ryerson (1813-1883) and his wife Ellen Griffin Larned (1822-1881). His older brother Charles Larned Ryerson died in infancy. His younger siblings were Edward Larned, Eleanor and Josephine. He was a cousin of George Ryerson and also related to the Canadian politician and educational reformer Egerton Ryerson . His father Joseph founded the steel construction company Joseph T. Ryerson & Sons, Inc. in Chicago in 1842 , which continued to expand in the decades that followed. At the turn of the century, the company supplied the railway industry , building contractors and manufacturers of various iron and metal products.

Arthur Ryerson studied law at Yale University and graduated in 1871. He became a partner in the Chicago law firm Isham, Lincoln & Beale, founded in 1872 by Edward Swift Isham and Robert Todd Lincoln . The firm was henceforth known as Isham, Lincoln & Ryerson. He later became president of his father's company and was responsible for the further development of the company. On January 31, 1889, he married Emily Maria Borie (1863–1939) in Philadelphia , who had French roots on her father's side. The couple had five children: Susan Parker “Suzette” (1890–1921), Arthur Larned, Jr. (1891–1912), Emily Borie (1893–1960), Ellen Ashfordbye (1895–1973), and John Borie (1898–1986 ). The family lived in Haverford , a neighborhood in Philadelphia.

Arthur Ryerson was in Europe with his wife and children Suzette, Emily and John when he received news that his eldest son Arthur had been killed in a car accident in Bryn Mawr on April 8, 1912. Two days later, the family, accompanied by Emily Ryerson's maid Victorine Chaudanson and John Ryerson's governess Grace Bowen , boarded the RMS Titanic as passengers in Cherbourg to return to the United States. The group of seven occupied cabins B-57, B-63 and B-66. After the Titanic collided with the iceberg just before midnight on April 14, Ryerson took his family to lifeboat No. 4, where the families of John Jacob Astor , George Widener and John B. Thayer were also waiting to be disembarked.

The women of the group were allowed to board. When Ryerson's son John tried to get on board, he was harshly rejected by second officer Charles Lightoller . Ryerson insisted his son could come along and said "Of course he goes with his mother, he's only 13!" Lightoller let him go, but muttered grimly "No more boys". Arthur Ryerson stayed behind and died in the sinking. His body was never found. His widow Emily Ryerson married in 1927 the almost 20 years younger employee of the United States Forest Service William Forsythe Sherfesee (1882-1965). She died in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939 and is buried in Cooperstown , New York.

literature

• Walter Lord : A Night to Remember . R. & W. Holt (non-fiction book, first edition 1955)

swell

• Arthur Ryerson in the database of Find a Grave (English) (with photo)
• Brief information and links in Encyclopedia Titanica

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Emily Maria Borie Ryerson (1863–1939) in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved March 9, 2011.