Jonathan Ogden Armour (1863–1927) was an American meatpacking magnate and the only surviving son of Civil War industrialist Philip Danforth Armour.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Armour became owner and president of Armour & Company upon his father’s death in 1901. During his tenure as president, sales increased from $200 million in 1900 to $1 billion in 1920. At his retirement in 1923, the company employed over 40,000 persons and was the largest meatpacking firm in the world.
A July 1904 strike by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters labor union against Armour & Co. and Armour’s reactions inspired Upton Sinclair’s classic novel, The Jungle (1906.)
Armour also had significant investments in the Kansas City Power & Light Company, The Metropolitan Street Railway in Kansas City, The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railway, The Illinois Central Railroad, and The Kansas City Post. However, much of Armour’s fortune was lost in the 1921 recession. He had borrowed heavily to finance a 54000-are reclamation project in the Sutter basin in California, but the return of peace brought a depression in farmland. Banking interests acquired large blocks of the company’s stock to pay his debts. By 1925, Armour & Company had ceased being a family firm.
J. Ogden Armour wrote two books: The Packers, the Private Car Lines, and the People (1906) and Business Problems of the War (1917.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by J. Ogden Armour
Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods, has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the saddest predicament which anyone can get into.
—J. Ogden Armour
Topics: Failure, Busy
Capital can do nothing without brains to direct it.
—J. Ogden Armour
Topics: Money
There may be luck in getting a good job—but there’s no luck in keeping it.
—J. Ogden Armour
Topics: Ability