Philip Danforth Armour

Philip Danforth Armour, Sr. (16 May 1832 – 6 January 1901) was an American meatpacking industrialist who founded the Chicago-based firm of Armour & Company. Born on an upstate New York farm, he made $8000 in the California gold rush, 1852-56. He opened a wholesale grocery business in Cincinnati, then moved it to Milwaukee. He made millions selling meat to the United States Army during the Civil War. In 1875 he moved his based to Chicago. Armour's innovations including bringing live hogs to the metropolis for slaughter, inventing an assembly line system for the dis-assembly of hogs, canning the product, economy of scale and efficiency in detail. He systematically utilized waste products, boasting that he made use of "everything but the squeal". The introduction of refrigerated rail cars opened a national market for him and competitors such as Gustavus Swift. Armour expanded into banking and speculation on the futures market for pork and wheat by 1900, his plants employed 15,000 workers; his own wealth was in the range of $50 million. The urgent Army need for meat during the Spanish–American War of 1898 led to highly publicized complaints about "emballed beef." Armour retired from business in 1899, and devoted himself for to philanthropy in the Chicago area, including local cost housing for industrial workers, and the major institution of higher education, the Armour Institute of Technology.