Thomas Hartley Given (Pittsburgh, PA)
Thomas Hartley Given (March 7, 1851 – June 28, 1919)
Biography
- Name: Thomas Hartley Given
- Birth: March 7, 1851 Pittsburgh, PA
- Death: June 28, 1919 Pittsburgh, PA
Thomas Hartley Given (1851-1919) was a Pittsburgh banker, financier, and venture capitalist active during the period of that city’s industrial expansion. While he headed or served as a corporate officer in a variety of enterprises, T. H. Given was best known to the public as the President of the Farmers Deposit National Bank and one-time owner of "Prince", the English bull terrier that served as the bank’s corporate mascot for nearly a half a century.
A native of Pittsburgh, T. H. Given was born in 1851, the son of Bernard and Jane Hartley Given. His father had a long career as a riverboat pilot on the Ohio River. Other than having two sisters, little is known about T. H. Given’s early upbringing or education. He began working at the Farmers Deposit National Bank (charter 685) as a bank teller around 1869 and moved to the Assistant Cashier position by 1878. In January 1880 he was elected Cashier and succeeded to the post of President in 1893. These years were also the beginnings of the "Prince" story. Given happened to be an ardent dog fancier who competed with his animals on the show circuit. In 1889 he accepted the gift of the bull terrier from a local policeman. For nearly a decade afterward, Prince became a fixture on the bank’s premises. After the animal disappeared in 1898, Given commemorated Prince in the ornamentation of the newly constructed Farmers Bank Building, into which Given moved his bank in 1903. Henceforth, Prince served as the Farmers Deposit National Bank’s distinctive corporate symbol until the institution was taken over by Mellon interests in 1950.
T. H. Given was known principally as President both of the Farmers Deposit National Bank and the Farmers Deposit Savings Bank, a thrift affiliate he established in 1903. Given headed both of these institutions, and was their chief stockholder, until his death in 1919. In addition, over the years Given was active in a variety of other non-bank enterprises, either as a corporate officer, director, or investor.
These positions included:
- Director, Edgewater Steel Co.
- Director, Daragua Sugar Co.
- Director, Gulf Oil Co.
- Director, Harbison-Walker Refractories Co.
- Director, Pittsburgh Spring & Steel Co.
- Director, Crucible Steel Co. of America
- Director, Pressed Steel Car Co.
- Director, National Fire Proofing Co.
- Director, Hostetter Coke Co.
- Director, Pittsburgh Railways Co.
- Director, Wheeling Natural Gas Co.
- Director, Lake Erie, Franklin, & Clarion R.R.
- Director, Pittsburgh, Bessemer, & Lake Erie R.R.
- Director and Treasurer, Pittsburgh, Shenango & Lake Erie R.R.
- Director, Midland Savings & Trust
- Director, Chartiers Trust Co.
- Treasurer, Iroquois Furnace Co. (South Chicago, Indiana - Hay Walker, Jr. Pres.).
- Treasurer, Pittsburgh and Southern Coal Co.
- Vice President, Empire Machine Co.
Many of these commitments were made along with the involvement of two of Given’s Pittsburgh contemporaries, Judge James Hay Reed and Hay Walker, Jr. Except for Pittsburgh Railways, which was a consolidation of various municipal traction (streetcar) lines, the other rail companies were specialized lines serving various Carnegie and Mellon industrial interests. Likewise, the Gulf Oil Co. was basically a Mellon undertaking that sought to build out a pipeline network between Indian Territory and the Gulf Coast.
In addition to Given’s many corporate titles, three additional ventures are worth mentioning in more detail. In 1902, Given and Walker bankrolled the radio experiments of the inventor Reginald A. Fessenden by founding the National Electric Signaling Co. (NESCO) and sinking a substantial amount of money into it. Their intent was to compete with Guglielmo Marconi to accomplish the first transatlantic radiotelegraphic transmission. Although Fessenden did achieve this historic breakthrough in 1906, his relationship with the two investors was rather rocky, culminating in their acrimonious breakup in 1911. Despite lawsuits, NESCO retained control over Fessenden’s patents. These passed over into the hands of the International Signal Co., of which Given remained owner and president. Upon Given’s death these patents were in turn acquired from his estate by the RCA Corporation.
A second investment in technology proved to be more immediately fruitful. Given patiently funded the glass experiments of John Lubbers, a skilled glass worker in Pittsburgh who innovated a mechanical process for blowing window glass cylinders. The resulting increase in production efficiency transformed the glass industry. Rights to this invention were acquired by the American Window Glass Co., founded in 1899 and later headquartered in the Farmers Bank Building. Given served as a director and vice president of this company as well as other glass concerns. With the death of its founder in early 1919, Given briefly assumed the presidency of the American Window Glass Co. and three related firms.
A third venture associated with Given was the founding of the Reliance Life Insurance Co. in 1903. Also located in the Farmers Bank Building, Reliance was headed by Judge Reed, while Given served as vice president (Reed also happened to chair the boards of directors of Given’s banks). From its beginnings the company prospered. Offering accident and health policies in addition to life insurance, by the time of Given’s death Reliance’s assets had quintupled from its beginnings, with the volume of its insurance written swelling to over $130 million.
Beyond his numerous investments, T.H. Given remained active in the city’s financial leadership throughout his career, beginning with his early years with the Bankers’ and Bank Clerks’ Mutual Benefit Association. As bank President he became a member of the Pittsburgh Clearing House Committee. Although unsuccessful in 1915 in securing the relocation of Cleveland’s Federal Reserve Bank to Pittsburgh, Given later occupied a place on the board of directors of the Pittsburgh branch of that institution. During World War I, he supervised Liberty Bond drives and promoted the sale of war savings stamps. In addition, he acted as a representative of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, run by A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer’s office was responsible for seizing and disposing of economic assets owned by citizens of enemy nations (i.e. Germany). In this capacity, Given supervised the sale at auction of the American assets of the Orenstein & Koppel engineering company.
A lifelong Democrat, Given supported the party nationally but kept Pittsburgh’s political scene at arm’s length. He came from the same Scotch Irish background as Pittsburgh’s more prominent industrialists. Pittsburgh’s politics of the time were in the hands of Republicans; the city’s demographic transformations centered on swelling population of German and Eastern European immigrants. Later in his career Given fell into the role of publisher around 1910 when, as a result of their financial difficulties, his bank assumed ownership of two newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post and the Pittsburgh Sun. While the Post was identified as a Democratic paper, Given did not attempt to run it in a particularly partisan way, although apparently, he did take his editorial duties seriously.
In contrast to his numerous business ventures and public roles, little is known about his personal life. In March 1904, at middle age, Given married Martha A. Kennedy, a divorcee with two daughters. Otherwise, he had no offspring of his own. Although not generally of the same stature as a Frick, Mellon, or Carnegie, Thomas Hartley Given was nonetheless a significant figure in the financial and industrial life of Pittsburgh during the period of the city’s rapid economic and demographic growth.
Bank Officer Summary
During his banking career, T. H. Given was involved with the following bank:
- Farmers Deposit NB, Pittsburgh, PA (Charter 685): President 1893-1918; Cashier 1880-1892
Sources
- Bio written by Loren Gatch.
- The Fourth Estate, July 5, 1919.
- Gatch, Loren, Prince, Watchdog of the Bank (SPMC.org Blog 2022).
- Leslie’s Weekly, March 9, 1903.
- Monro, W. L. “Pittsburgh and the Glass Industry”, in Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Spirit (Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburgh 1927-1928), pp. 105-122.
- Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 22, 1919.
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 20, 1919; June 29, 1919.
- Pittsburgh Press, March 6, 1904; June 29, 1919.
- Seitz, Frederick, The Cosmic Inventor: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, 1866-1932 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society 1999).
- The Spectator, June 1920; January 1943.
- Wilson, Erasmus (ed.) Standard History of Pittsburgh (Chicago: H. R. Cornel and Co. 1898), ch. XIX.
- Thomas Hartley Given on Findagrave.com.
- Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project