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Charles Stewart Mott

American businessman and politician (1875–1973)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ5082687
Source-derived summary

Charles Stewart Mott (June 2, 1875 – February 18, 1973) was an American industrialist and businessman, philanthropist, a co-owner of General Motors, and the 50th and 55th mayor of Flint, Michigan.

Mott is the figure most responsible for founding the Flint Senior College (now University of Michigan–Flint). Mott initiated the idea of creating the college and pledged $1 million toward the project.

Career

Charles Stewart Mott was born on June 2, 1875, in Newark, New Jersey, to John Coon Mott and Isabella Turnbull Stewart. He graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1897 with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1907 Mott moved his wheel and axle manufacturing firm, Weston Mott, from Utica, New York to Flint, Michigan after an invitation by William C. Durant, then the President of the Buick Motor Company, which was soon to become the General Motors Corporation. Weston-Mott later merged with GM. For many decades Mott would remain the single largest individual shareholder in the firm, and accumulate wealth in excess of $800 million. His closest proteges at the helm of GM were Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. and Charles Kettering. In 1921, Mott became chief of the GM Advisory Staff at the Detroit headquarters.

Editorial summary

“Charles Stewart Mott” enters the record as american businessman and politician (1875–1973). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charles, Stewart and Mott can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1875, 1973, 1897, 1907—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1875-06-02. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Charles, Stewart and Mott.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Charles Stewart Mott” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Charles, Stewart and Mott provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5082687. VIAF identifies the subject as 315533506. The Library of Congress control number is n92085116. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1973, 1897 and 1907.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Stewart Mott”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charles Stewart Mott primary sources, Charles Stewart Mott archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Stewart Mott”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Charles Stewart Mott” 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.