Henry Latham Doherty was born in Columbus, Ohio, on May 15, 1870, the son of Frank and Anna Lavonia McElvain Doherty. He grew up in a working-class household and from an early age showed little interest in traditional schooling. As a boy he sold newspapers on the streets of Columbus, learning lessons about hard work and self-reliance that would remain with him throughout his life. By the age of twelve he had gone to work for the Columbus Gas Company, bringing his formal educa

Barbara Cushing was born on July 5, 1915, in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a family where brilliance, discipline, ambition, and social expectation shaped nearly every corner of life. She was the youngest child of Dr. Harvey Williams Cushing and Katharine Stone Crowell Cushing, and from the beginning she belonged to a household unlike most others in America. Her father was already one of the most important physicians of his generation. Harvey Cushing helped transform brain su

Frank Winfield Woolworth was born on April 13, 1852, in the small farming community of Rodman in Jefferson County, New York, at a time when northern New York remained a landscape of rough farms, muddy roads, hard winters, and isolated rural settlements. He was the eldest son of John Hubbell Woolworth and Fanny McBrier Woolworth, who struggled to maintain a modest farm while raising their family amid the economic uncertainties of mid-nineteenth century agricultural life. The f

Caroline Webster Schermerhorn was born on September 22, 1830, in New York City, into a world that still belonged to old New York. The city she entered was not yet the sprawling metropolis that would later astonish the world with its towering mansions, electric lights, and endless streams of carriages along Fifth Avenue. Much of fashionable society remained concentrated far downtown, where narrow streets and brick residences stood near the harbor and the old Dutch churches of

Sir Harry Oakes, 1st Baronet, was born Harry Oakes on December 23, 1874, in Sangerville, Piscataquis County, Maine, the son of William Pitt Oakes and Edith Nancy Lewis Oakes. He was born into a long-established New England family whose roots in central Maine stretched back generations, but his own ambitions carried him far beyond the forests and farming communities of Piscataquis County. Through persistence, instinct, and an extraordinary willingness to endure hardship, he ro

Carl Kirsch Dresser was born on March 27, 1890, in Bradford, McKean County, Pennsylvania, the son of Solomon Robert Dresser and Caroline Kirsch Dresser. He belonged to one of the most important industrial families connected to the development of the American oil and natural gas industry. Carl Kirsch Dresser His father founded the S. R. Dresser Manufacturing Company, whose pipeline couplings, valves, and fittings became essential to petroleum and gas production throughout the