Charles A. Spring Jr.
American businessman
Charles A. Spring Jr. (1826–1901) was a prominent Chicago capitalist during its transition from a frontier town of 30,000 in the 1850s to an industrial metropolis of more than 1.7 million at the turn of the 20th century. He was a key figure in its rise, serving as inventor Cyrus McCormick's closest adviser and as general manager of the McCormick Harvesting Company for many years.
Early life
Charles A. Spring Jr. was born in Boston in 1826, and spent his first years there and then in Brooklyn, New York.
His father, Charles A. Spring Sr., was a dry goods merchant at the time, and his grandfather was Reverend Samuel Spring. In 1837, the family moved west and settled into farming at Rock Island, Illinois. After Charles Jr.'s mother died in 1850, the Springs went into the boot and shoe business in Chicago under the name C. A. Spring & Sons.
In November 1853, Charles Jr. married Ellen Maria Spring (possibly a relative) in East Hartford, Connecticut.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles A. Spring Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.