Isaac Rice

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Isaac Rice (ca.1905)

Isaac Leopold Rice (born February 22, 1850 in Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse , † November 2, 1915 in New York City ) was an American lawyer, entrepreneur and chess player of German origin.

The von Rice family emigrated from Germany to the USA in the second half of the 19th century , where Isaac Rice studied in Philadelphia . Rice specialized in railroad law and became the founder of railroad companies in various cities in the United States.

He organized the Electric Storage Battery Company (ESB) in 1888 and invested in the development of more powerful batteries. By acquiring competitors and patents, he developed the company into the market leader for stationary batteries by the end of 1894 and began to expand into other markets.

In 1897 the Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) was founded, which for a short time became the largest car manufacturer in the USA. Rice sold the company to a consortium led by William Collins Whitney in 1899 . After witnessing a series of financial scandals and legal battles with investors, Pope withdrew and EVC ultimately only served to exploit the Selden patent acquired by Whitney .

The designer and submarine pioneer John Philip Holland approached Rice in 1898 to encourage him to invest in his company. The Electric Boat Company emerged from this in 1899 and exists to this day.

As an entrepreneur, Rice became very wealthy before the turn of the century.

His passion was chess , which he played as an amateur and promoted as a patron . The Rice Gambit in the Kieseritzky Gambit, a variant of the King Jumper Gambit, which is incorrect from today's perspective, is named after him . Rice hired many top players, including world champion Emanuel Lasker to it analyze and prove its playability. In 1904 a double-round championship tournament with six participants took place in Monte Carlo , in which the Rice Gambit was prescribed as the opening. Frank Marshall and Rudolf Swiderski shared first place, and the total prize fund was 2500 francs . According to the Oxford Companion to Chess , the Gambit is a "grotesque monument to a rich man's vanity".

Isaac Rice was married to Julia Hyneman Barnett and had six children.

literature

  • David Hooper, Kenneth Whyld: The Oxford Companion to Chess . Oxford 1984.
  • David A. Kirsch: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ / London 2000, ISBN 0-8135-2809-7 . (English)
  • Ernest Henry Wakefield: History of the Electric Automobile; Battery-Only Powered Cars. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), Warrendale PA 1970, ISBN 1-56091-299-5 . (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes (ed.); Henry Austin Clark Jr.: The Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 2nd Edition. Krause Publications, Iola WI 1985, ISBN 0-87341-111-0 . (English)
  • GN Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. 2nd Edition. Dutton Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Permissions, Warrendale PA 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X . (English)
  • James J. Flink: America Adopts the Automobile - 1895-1910. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 1970, ISBN 0-262-06036-1 . (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c geocities.com: Isaac L. Rice
  2. ↑ a b Kirsch: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. 2000, p. 35.
  3. ↑ a b Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1985, p. 502.
  4. ^ Hooper, Whyld: The Oxford Companion to Chess. 1984, p. 282.
personal data
SURNAME Rice, Isaac
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rice, Isaac Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chess player
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Guard home
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1915
Place of death New York City