Henry Clay Folger biography
Henry Clay Folger, in full Henry Clay Folger, Jr., (born June 18, 1857, New York, NewYork, U.S.—died June 11, 1930, Brooklyn, NewYork), American lawyer and enterprise government who's mainly remembered because the founding father of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Henry’s father of the identical identify was a ninth-generation descendant of the Nantucket settler Peter Folger, whose daughter, Abiah, was Benjamin Franklin’s mom. Henry Jr. was a nephew of J.A. Folger, the founding father of Folgers Coffee. Henry attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn earlier than coming into Amherst College in 1875. At Amherst Folger gained prizes in English composition and oratory, sang within the glee membership and in a fraternity quartet, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was there that he developed an curiosity in William Shakespeare, which deepened throughout his senior yr after he heard a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Upon his commencement from Amherst in 1879, Folger took nighttime courses in legislation at Columbia University (LL.B., 1881) whereas working as a clerk for Charles Pratt & Company, a part of the Standard Oil group of corporations. In 1908 he grew to become a director of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and in 1911 he grew to become president of Standard Oil Company of New York. Under his course the agency prospered, and he was made chairman of the board in 1923. He retired in 1928.
He and his spouse, Emily Jordan Folger (1858–1936), deliberate for 9 years to construct a library of Shakespearean supplies on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and in 1928 the U.S. Congress authorized their challenge, thereby allowing the Folgers to buy land that had been meant for the enlargement of the Library of Congress. Although Henry died simply as building started in 1930, Emily oversaw the completion of the library and assisted with funding within the midst of the Great Depression, personally contributing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to the completion of the challenge. She remained lively with the library till her dying in 1936.