[[File:William Jay Schieffelin from PhD.png|thumb|William Jay Schieffelin Ph.D.]]
William Jay Schieffelin attended [[Trinity School (New York City)|Trinity School]] in Manhattan.
William Jay Schieffelin attended [[Trinity School (New York City)|Trinity School]] in Manhattan.
He received further education at the [[Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science|Columbia School of Mines]], where he graduated as Ph.B. and member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in 1887. At Columbia he studied chemistry under Professor [[Charles F. Chandler]].<ref name=":4" />
He received further education at the [[Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science|Columbia School of Mines]], where he graduated as Ph.B. and member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in 1887. At Columbia he studied chemistry under Professor [[Charles F. Chandler]].<ref name=":4" />
[[File:William Jay Schieffelin from PhD.png|thumb|William Jay Schieffelin Ph.D.]]
He then studied for two years at the University of Munich with Professor [[Adolf von Baeyer|von Baeyer]] and received his Ph.D. in chemistry cum laude in 1889.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=William Jay Schieffelin (1866-1955) - HouseHistree |url=https://househistree.com/people/william-jay-schieffelin |access-date=2023-07-01 |website=househistree.com}}</ref><ref name=":2" />
He then studied for two years at the University of Munich with Professor [[Adolf von Baeyer|von Baeyer]] and received his Ph.D. in chemistry cum laude in 1889.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=William Jay Schieffelin (1866-1955) - HouseHistree |url=https://househistree.com/people/william-jay-schieffelin |access-date=2023-07-01 |website=househistree.com}}</ref><ref name=":2" />
William Jay Schieffelin ( New York City, April 14, 1866 – April 29, 1955), was an American businessman, philanthropist, and president of the Citizens Union (New York City).[1][2][3]
Schieffelin house on 5 East 66th Street in Manhattan, east of Fifth Avenue. The building is owned by the Lotos Club since 1947.The Schieffelin family sailing around 1910. Maria Louise Shepard Schieffelin, William Jay Schieffelin, and their children."Pa & Ma and the Nine. 1923." Maria Louise Shepard Schieffelin, William Jay Schieffelin, and their nine children. 1923. Tranquility Farm on Schieffelin Point Peninsula, Maine.William Jay Schieffelin around 1893
The family lived on 5 East 66th Street (the building is owned by the Lotos Club since 1947) and moved to 620 Park Avenue in 1925. They also had an estate on Schieffelin Point peninsula in Maine.
Military service
During the Spanish-American War in 1898, William Jay Schieffelin served as a volunteer captain and regimental adjutant of the 12th Regiment of the National Guard.[7]
In 1898 President McKinley called for volunteers for the war with Spain. In August 1898, William Jay Schieffelin served as senior aide on the staff of General Peter Conover Hains.[2]
First General Hains’ brigade was ordered to Newport News to take ship for Cuba, but then the orders were changed, and the brigade was on a transport for Puerto Rico.[2]
On August 13, 1898, General Miles had ordered an advance against the Spanish forces that were entrenched at Cayey, Puerto Rico. General Hains commanded the column that was to attack the left flank. The battle was halted upon notification of the armistice between the United States and Spain.[2]
When he was in Puerto Rico, William Jay Schieffelin was affected by the Army beef scandal, because the troops in the field were supplied with rancid canned meat. His weight had become reduced from 174 lbs. to 124 lbs., and it took him four months to regain his strength after the war.[2]
William Jay Schieffelin Colonel of the 15th New York Infantry, World War I.
In World War I, 1918, Governor Whitman commissioned William Jay Schieffelin Colonel of the 15th New York Infantry, the (mainly) African American replacement regiment of Colonel William Hayward, 369th Infantry, U.S. Army, which served gloriously in the American Expeditionary Forces in France, where the whole regiment was awarded the Croix de Guerre. The 369th Infantry Regiment was commonly referred to as the Harlem Hellfighters.[2]
William Jay Schieffelin was involved in organizing the Memorial Day parade in 1919. He had recruited 800 men and was presiding at an officers’ meeting, when the orders for the parade were handed to him. He ensured that the 15th Infantry regiment was the second in line of parade, and it went up Riverside Drive amid cheers, marched to Central Park and finally paraded through Harlem.[2]
Schieffelin & Co
William Jay Schieffelin in 1925.
Back in Manhattan, William Jay Schieffelin had been a partner in Schieffelin & Co since 1890, its vice president since 1903, its president 1906–1923 and its chairman of board 1923–1929.[7][2] He managed Schieffelin & Co in the 5th generation after Jacob Schieffelin (1757–1835), who founded the company in 1794 (then Lawrence & Schieffelin, Pharma-Trade, at 195 Pearl Street in Manhattan).[5][14] Schieffelin & Co was America's longest-running pharmaceutical business.
In 1889, William Jay Schieffelin began work in the analytical department of Schieffelin & Co and the company's laboratory, which was on Front Street in Manhattan. His routine work was assaying opium and coca leaves and standardizing concentrated Ethyl nitrite. At that time cocaine was in large demand for local anesthesia, and Schieffelin & Co imported large quantities of coca leaves from Bolivia and Peru, and became the leading manufacturers of the hydrochloride.[2]
Committee work and social commitment
William Jay Schieffelin's social commitment extended to many associations and institutions:
President of the National Wholesale Druggists Association (1910)[15][2]
William Jay Schieffelin, Adjutant 12th New York Infantry, Rank: Adjutant, General Index CardAdjutant 12th New York Infantry, Spanish-American War (1898)[2]
City Reform Club, City Club of New York, and Citizens Union
When William Jay Schieffelin returned from Europe in the Fall of 1889, his cousin John Jay Chapman told him to join the City Reform Club.[2]
William Jay Schieffelin joined the group consisting of members John Jay Chapman, William Harris Roome, Boudinot Keith, J. Noble Hayes, Edmond Kelly, Richard Welling,[36]Henry L. Stimson, Charles Bernheimer. Sometime they asked Robert Fulton Cutting and Gustav Henry Schwab for advice.[2][37]
In 1892 a Committee with Senator Lexow as Chairman was appointed, and the Lexow Investigation was one of the milestones in the fight against corruption in New York City. The report of the Lexow Committee was so definite that it amounted to a tremendous indictment and condemnation of Tammany and the system of corruption bribery that existed in the Police Department.[2]
The City Club was founded in 1892 through the efforts of Edmond Kelly and Robert Fulton Cutting and the members of the City Reform Club. William Jay Schieffelin served as chairman of the membership committee and secured 400 members. The Club elected the eminent lawyer, James C. Carter, as its first president. The members of the City Club and other independent leaders formed Good Government Clubs in many of the city districts.[2]
In 1896 mayor Strong appointed William Jay Schieffelin as Civil Service Commissioner in New York City.[2]
In 1897 City Club helped organize Citizens Union of which William Jay Schieffelin was president from 1908 to 1941. The club's mission was not only to fight corruption, but also to generally improve the quality of life in the city, especially to preserve Central Park. In 1924 William Jay Schieffelin proposed banning cars from Central Park. William Jay Schieffelin organized the Committee of One Thousand to remove mayor James J. Walker from office. His complaints against mayor Walker at the hearings led to the mayor’s resignation.[1][2][30][28][39][31][29][40][41][42][43][37][44][45]
Committee of One Thousand (1930)
William Jay Schieffelin knew Al Smith very well. In 1926 he had one controversy with Al Smith because of alleged grafters in the Health Department. The case later led to the Seabury Investigation.”[2][46][47]
The Citizens Union realized that the Walker Administration had become ripe for an investigation by a Legislative Committee. To create a popular demand for such action, William Jay Schieffelin organized what was called the “Committee of One Thousand” demanding the investigation coupled with the request that Samuel Seabury be named as counsel for the investigating committee. The Legislature acted as requested and named State Senator Hofstadter as Chairman.[2][28][39][31][48][49]
Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Mayor Walker to a hearing in Albany. William Jay Schieffelin had to be present as the complaining citizen. Judge Seabury appeared as prosecutor. After the hearing Mayor Walker resigned.[2]
Volunteer Christian Committee to Boycott Nazi Germany
On January 9, 1939, the Volunteer Christian Committee to Boycott Nazi Germany (VCC), led by Christopher Temple Emmet, Jr., (Secretary) and William Jay Schieffelin (Chairman), was founded by sixty prominent Americans. The Committee waged a campaign for many months, chiefly through newspaper advertising, calling upon Christians to augment the boycott already in effect by American Jews. In March 1939, William Jay Schieffelin asked William Green to link up the American Federation of Labor with the VCC to strengthen America’s anti-Nazi boycott movement. But Green declined. Later, Schieffelin merged his group with others to form the Coordinated Boycott Committee, which continued operations until shortly before America’s entry into World War II.[2][50]
France Forever
On December 20, 1940, France Forever called a public meeting at Carnegie Hall, and William Jay Schieffelin was asked to speak, representing the Huguenot Society. In his speech William Jay Schieffelin said, ”It is high time to discard that slogan ’Short of War’ which was put in political platforms to placate the isolationists and the pacifists. It is a cowardly slogan encouraging Hitler and Japan, saying we will not stand up like men and fight, even when our National safety and most cherished beliefs are threatened. We must stop Hitler ’Short of nothing’.”[2][51]
League to Enforce Peace (1915), Federal Union, Inc. (1941), World Federation (1943)
Clarence Streit’s book "Union Now" (published in 1939) made a deep impression. Therefore, the Federal Union Inc., of which William Jay Schieffelin was New York’s chairman, gave a dinner for the Uniting States of the World at the Waldorf Astoria on January 22, 1941.[2][52]
For William Jay Schieffelin, this was the culmination of a movement begun in 1915, called League to Enforce Peace of which former President William Howard Taft was the Chairman. President Lowell of Harvard was chairman of the Executive Committee, which was formed of the chairmen of the various State committees. William Jay Schieffelin was chairman from New York.[2]
According to William Jay Schieffelin the United States should have joined League of Nations, but did not because President Wilson became obstinate. In William’s opinion, the result of the United States never joining the League of Nations was “tragic”.[2]
During the campaign for World Government, William Jay Schieffelin and his wife hosted a lunch party, which they gave in honor of Robert Lee Humber, a co‐founder of the United World Federalists organization, who was waging for a United World, patterned after the United States. In 1943, the New York State Committee For World Federation was founded and William Jay Schieffelin was appointed Chairman. After a campaign the Legislature of the State of New York passed a resolution, which declared its conviction that an international organization of all nations is an essential condition of the peace. Thus, the State Legislature repudiated isolationism and aggregated worldwide cooperation. The resolution supported U.S. efforts to join the United Nations.[2]
African Americans
William Jay Schieffelin was an advocate for the rights and social progress of African Americans. He was president of the New York Armstrong Association (named after Samuel Chapman Armstrong). The Association was formed as a vehicle to support the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, an all-black agricultural and vocational institution in Hampton, Virginia and to engage with matters of African American uplift. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the Hampton Institute. Simultaneously, William Jay Schieffelin served forty years on the Tuskegee Board, which he chaired for twenty-three years. Schieffelin opened the Tuskegee Institute Silver Anniversary Lecture at Carnegie Hall in 1906. He met Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. William Jay Schieffelin was at Tuskegee in Alabama when the Scottsboro Case happened. When the Scottsboro Defense Committee was formed, he was appointed treasurer.[2]
Politics and connections with the Roosevelt family
In 1906 William Jay Schieffelin went to the White House at Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation to discuss race relations. He disagreed with the way Roosevelt treated the African American soldiers at Brownsville.[2]
In 1909 Theodore Roosevelt sent a letter to William Jay Schieffelin in which he wrote: “Did I tell you how much Sir Harry Johnston admired your family? You and yours are pretty good Americans.”[53]
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mother, Sara Roosevelt, was a good friend of William's mother, Mary Jay Schieffelin. The Roosevelts lived nearby on East 65th Street. Sara Roosevelt and William and his wife went to meetings or social gatherings.[2]
William Jay Schieffelin had frequently met Eleanor Roosevelt at the Interrelation meetings (United Nations). He had known Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt for about thirty years and admired her commitment to humanity.[2][54][27]
William Jay Schieffelin was a (Lincoln) Republican, but he came out in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt and voted for him on the American Labor Party Line in 1940.[2]
Woodrow Wilson
William Jay Schieffelin knew Woodrow Wilson. At the outbreak of the First World War, William Jay Schieffelin offered to raise an African American cavalry regiment, of which he would be Colonel; but the offer was rejected by President Woodrow Wilson. Governor Whitman, however, appointed him Colonel of the 15th New York Infantry (an African American regiment of the State Guard).[1]
New York College of Pharmacy
At the age of 17, William Jay Schieffelin went to Columbia to study chemistry. He was taking the course in chemistry under Professor Charles F. Chandler. Professor Chandler had advised Schieffelin's parents to send him to Germany for a postgraduate course and a possible degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1887.[2]
Schieffelin’s great-grandfather, Henry Hamilton Schieffelin, was a founder of the New York College of Pharmacy and was its first President. William Jay Schieffelin became a member of its Board of Trustees during the 1890s. Later Schieffelin became president of the New York College of Pharmacy. The College of Pharmacy became part of Columbia University.[2][55][56]
Drug Act of 1906
In 1906, Congress formed a committee to clarify why the United States had a problem with addictive substances in pharmaceutical products, and how this problem could be avoided. William Jay Schieffelin was summoned as an expert before Congress to contribute to the clarification. The statements of Schieffelin and other experts led to a tightening of drug laws in the USA.[57] The Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted by Congress in 1906.
American Leprosy Missions; Schieffelin Institute of Health in Karigiri, India
In 1909 William Jay Schieffelin became chairman of the Committee of the American Mission to Lepers.[2][18]
In 1955 the Schieffelin Leprosy Research and Training Center was opened in Karigiri, India, named in honor of William Jay Schieffelin, the chairman of the American Leprosy Missions board of governors from 1909 to 1941.[18][21]
Joint Board of Sanitary Control
Because William Jay Schieffelin was Chairman of the Citizens Union, other opportunities of service occurred. One was the Chairmanship of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Needlework Industry. In 1910 the cloakmakers, numbering nearly 80,000 men and women, struck against intolerable conditions existing in sweatshops. Their leader was Joseph Barondess. Schieffelin presided at a great mass meeting in the hall of the Cooper Union. An agreement called Protocol was drawn up, which established a body called the Joint Board of Sanitary Control, to adopt standards to safeguard the health and safety of the workers.[2][58][59][60]
Social Network
Carl Schurz
William Jay Schieffelin knew Carl Schurz very well and admired him. In the 1890s he visited Carl Schurz, and they talked about Good Government topics.[2][61][62]
William Jay Schieffelin knew George McAneny when he was quite young. McAneny was Secretary of the New York Civil Service Reform League. The New York Civil Service Reform League persuaded Mayor Strong to appoint William Jay Schieffelin as Civil Service Commissioner. George McAneny was the one who suggested William’s appointment as Commissioner.[2]
^Scheufele, Michael (2022). Jacob Scheuffelin, currently in Pennsylvania … Five Hundred Years of the Schieffelin Family. wbg Academic in Herder. pp. 145–156. ISBN978-3534450060.
One Hundred Years of Business Life, 1794–1894. New York: W.H. Schieffelin & Co., 1894.
Over 200 Years of Growth. New York: Schieffelin & Somerset Co., 2002.
Birmingham, Stephen (2016). America’s Secret Aristocracy: The Families That Built the United States. First Lyons Press edition. ISBN 978-1-4930-2476-6.
Scheufele, Michael (2022). Jacob Scheuffelin, currently in Pennsylvania … Five Hundred Years of the Schieffelin Family. wbg Academic in Herder. ISBN 978-3-534-45006-0. eBook (PDF): 978-3-534-45007-7.
Gellman, David N. (2022). Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1501715846.