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Biography of Samuel Milton JonesName: Samuel Milton JonesBirth Date: August 8, 1846 Death Date: July 12, 1904 Place of Birth: Beddgelert, Caernarvonshire, Wales Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: manufacturer, political reformer Samuel Milton Jones Samuel Milton Jones (1846-1904), American manufacturer and political reformer, was noted for his enlightened labor policies and progressive political crusades.Samuel Jones was born Aug. 8, 1846, near Beddgelert, Caernarvonshire, Wales. His parents immigrated to an upstate New York farm when he was three. After only a few years of school he started working at the age of 10. He left home four years later, worked at various manual jobs, and was employed finally in the oil fields in Titusville, Pa. By 1870 he had begun to acquire wells of his own, and in 1885 he moved to Lima, Ohio, where he struck even richer wells. He invented several improved oil-drilling devices and in 1894 established the Acme Sucker Rod Company of Toledo to manufacture oil-well machinery.Jones's business success did not harden him to the lot of underprivileged men. Instead, he earned the nickname "Golden Rule" Jones for running his factory on Christian and humanitarian precepts. …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…to many Toledo residents, but Jones was reelected in 1899, 1901, and 1903.A dispute with the state Republican leadership in 1899 prompted Jones to run without party affiliation in every election thereafter. This was a fitting departure for a man whose personal style was more educational and evangelical than political in a partisan sense. Jones died in office on July 12, 1904, one of the most widely respected civic leaders of his time. Further Reading Jones produced two statements of his philosophy: The New Right: A Plea for Fair Play through a More Just Social Order (1899), which contains autobiographical material on his early life, and Letters of Love and Labor (2 vols., 1900-1901). Jones's protégé, Brand Whitlock, wrote an admiring assessment of him in Forty Years of It (1914). Hoyt Landon Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 1897-1917 (1964), and Jack Tager, The Intellectual as Urban Reformer: Brand Whitlock and the Progressive Movement (1968), contain useful sketches of Jones's career. |