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Harry Guggenheim
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Promoter/Entrepreneur
Guggenheim visited Charles Lindbergh at Curtiss Field before Lindbergh departed for his famous flight to Paris. "When you get back from your flight, look me up," said Guggenheim, who later admitted he didn’t think there was much chance Lindbergh would survive the trip. Lindbergh did call on Guggenheim when he returned and their friendship had a profound impact on aviation development in the U.S.
- During World War I he earned his wings and served with the U.S. Naval Aviation Forces in Europe.
- In 1926, led the establishment of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund (his father) at New York University for the promotion of aeronautics including the feasibility of airline passenger service, a 48 state tour by Lindbergh which demonstrated air safety, the first aviation weather reporting service and a flight laboratory which Doolittle demonstrated instrumented "blind" flight.
- In 1930, he became the head of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation which supported the pioneering rocket research of Dr. Robert H. Goddard.
- Furthered the research of aeronautics by establishing a Jet Propulsion Center at Cal Tech, the laboratory for Aerospace Propulsion at Princeton, the Institute of Flight Structures at Columbia, the Aviation Safety Center at Cornell, the Center for Aerospace Health and Safety at Harvard and the International Academy of Astronautics.
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Biography
Enshrined 1971
1890-1971
Guggenheim's interest in aviation grew as a result of his service as a naval aviator during World War I. In March 1917, in anticipation of U.S. involvement in the war, Guggenheim purchased a Curtiss Flying Boat and took instructions. By May he had formed a naval vviation unit that trained at Mahasset Bay, Long Island. In September of 1917, he earned a commission as a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy Reserves and received orders to France. Guggenheim also served in England and Italy until the armistice, when he left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander.
A 1907 graduate of Columbia Grammar School in New York City, Guggenheim attended the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. He later left Yale and served a three-year apprenticeship in the mines and metallurgical plants of the American Smelting and Refining Co. in Mexico. He resumed his education in 1910 at England's Pembroke College, Cambridge University, receiving his B.A. in 1913 and an M.A. from Cambridge in 1913.
From 1913 to 1923, Guggenheim was an officer and director of several copper companies, including executive director of the Chile Copper Co., owner of the world's largest copper deposit. He was the United States ambassador to Cuba from 1929 until his resignation in 1933.
In 1924, his parents established the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation of which Harry F. Guggenheim was a director and president for many years. Under his leadership, the foundation sponsored much of the research of Dr. Robert H. Goddard, upon which all modern developments of rockets and let propulsion are based.
Guggenheim's strong interest in aviation was responsible for persuading his father to provide funds for the establishment of the first Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at New York University in 1925. He became president of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics a year later. This fund, totaling $3 million, included an equipment loan for operating the first regularly scheduled commercial airline in the United States. It also provided for the establishment of the first weather reporting exclusively for passenger airplanes.
Before the fund terminated in January 1930, it had helped to establish schools of aeronautical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia School of Technology, California Institute of Technology, University of Washington, Stanford University and University of Michigan. From these schools came many of the aeronautical engineers who built today's airplane industry.
Guggenheim further used the fund to organize a Safe Aircraft Competition to encourage aerodynamic safety without loss of aircraft efficiency. As a result of this activity, then Lieutenant James H. Doolittle, demonstrated the principle of fog-flying on September 24th, 1929, when he took off, flew and landed using only instruments in an aircraft with the cockpit completely covered.
In 1929, President Hoover appointed Guggenheim to serve on the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics, a position that he held until 1938. In 1948, as president of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, he continued to assure U.S. aviation progress when he helped organize the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center at California Institute of Technology and the Guggenheim Laboratories for Aerospace Propulsion Sciences at Princeton University.
In 1954, the Guggenheim Institute of Flight Structures was established at Columbia University, again under the leadership of Harry F. Guggenheim. In 1960 he made possible the International Academy of Astronautics. For his contributions to American aviation, Guggenheim received the General H.H. Arnold Award in 1956 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, citing him as the American citizen contributing the most during the year to aviation. He also received the Laura Taba Barbour Award from the Automotive Engineers in 1957 for his contributions to air safety, the Wright Memorial Trophy in 1964, and the Frank Hawks Memorial Trophy in 1965.
Guggenheim, with his third wife, Alicia Patterson, established Newsday in 1940. Guggenheim was President of the company, while his wife was editor and publisher until her death in 1963, at which time he assumed those duties until 1967, when he relinquished the duties of editor and publisher. He continued as president and editor-in-chief until his retirement in May 1970. Under his guidance, the circulation of Newsday reached 450,000 and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Harry F. Guggenheim was born August 23rd, 1890 at West End, New Jersey and died January 22nd, 1971.
For more information on Harry Guggenheim, you may want to visit these websites:
Centennial of Flight
Encyclopedia.com
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
Library of Congress Guggenheim Papers
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