The individual who begins life as a poor newsboy, and in the full flush of his manhood is found to be the head of an industry created by himself in which untold millions are invested, and which is of supreme importance to the community, serves his generation in more ways than one. If he has done nothing else he has acted as an exemplar for the faint-hearted, as a beacon for the persevering, and as a type of American manhood, and all that lies before it. Such an individual is Hugh Chisholm, who has brought into existence a corporation which is making paper for nearly all the newspapers of the United States. When it is said that one New York newspaper buys six thousand dollars worth of paper every day, some idea may be gained of the vast proportions of the industry. Mr. Chisholm was born at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, May 2, 1847, and began life as a train newsboy on the Grand Trunk railroad, studying meanwhile in evening classes of business colleges in Toronto. When the Civil war broke out, the lad, who is of Scotch descent, with the shrewdness of his race, realized the possibilities of the situation and pushed his wares to the utmost, sometimes holding them at a premium. He at length was able to hire some other boys to sell newspapers for him. He next obtained from the railroad company the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the division east of Toronto. He extended his “combinations,” and when he was twenty-five years of age had the exclusive news routes over four thousand miles of railroad, and had two hundred and fifty men on his payroll. Selling out his interests to his brothers, who had similar interests in New England, he purchased the latter and located in Portland, Maine, where he added publishing to his business. Foreseeing a growth of the newspaper trade, and realizing that there would be a huge consequent demand for white paper, he organized the Somerset Fiber Company, the manufacturing of wood pulp at Fairfield. Later he established a number of pulp mills in Maine. Next he devised a plan of business consolidations and a few years ago the Chisholm properties and a score of other mills in New England, New York and Canada were merged into one company. The output of the mills is more than 1,500 tons per day and is increasing rapidly. In 1872 he married Henrietta Mason, of Portland.

Theodore Lowe De Vinne.

From a country printer boy to the head of one of the greatest printing establishments in the metropolis—this in brief is the story of the career of Theodore Lowe De Vinne. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut, December 25, 1828, being the second son of Daniel and Joanna Augusta De Vinne. His parents were of Holland extraction. His father was a Methodist minister, who was an uncompromising opponent of slavery. Theodore secured a common school education at Catskill, White Plains, and Amenia, New York, and at the age of fourteen entered the office of the Gazette, Newburgh, New York, to learn the printing trade. After he had gotten a general knowledge of the business he went to New York city in 1848. Two years later he obtained employment in the establishment of Francis Hart & Co. and rose to the position of foreman. In 1858 he became a junior partner in the firm and five years after the death of Mr. Hart, which took place in 1883, he changed the name of the firm to Theodore L. De Vinne & Co., making his only son, Theodore L. De Vinne, Jr., his partner. He now occupies one of the largest buildings in the United States, which is wholly devoted to the printing business. Mr. De Vinne has marked ability as an organizer, having, with the assistance of the late Peter C. Baker, formed the society now known as the TypothetÆ. In 1850 he married Grace, daughter of Joseph Brockbant. He is the author of the Printers’ Price List, The Invention of Printing, Historic Types and Printing Types. Mr. De Vinne has done much to elevate the standard of typography. As early as 1863 the American institute awarded his firm a medal for the best book printing. The firm has published St. Nicholas and the Century since 1874.

William Louis Douglas.

William Louis Douglas, of Brockton, Massachusetts, who, through the medium of his widely advertised shoes, is probably one of the most easily recognized men in the United States, was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, August 22, 1845. The career of Mr. Douglas emphasizes the fact that the days of opportunity for young men without money or influence are by no means over. He was an orphan, handicapped by lack of schooling, a victim of injustice and apparently without any prospects in life whatever. Now he is the owner of a vast fortune, a great business, an honorable place among honored men, and has influence for good in laboring circles, and no small power politically. When Mr. Douglas was five years of age, his father was lost at sea. At the age of seven he was apprenticed to his uncle to learn the shoemaking trade. The uncle proved to be a hard taskmaster, and at the expiration of his apprenticeship William found himself the owner of just ten dollars and remembrances of many hard knocks. Subsequently he tried several ways of getting a livelihood, from driving ox teams in Nebraska to working at his trade. In conjunction with a Mr. Studley, he opened a boot store at Golden, Colorado. The venture did not pay, and returning to Massachusetts he took to shoemaking again until 1870, when he removed to Brockton to become superintendent of the shoe factory of Porter & Southworth. In 1876, with a borrowed capital of $375, he went into business for himself. Successful from the start, he, six years later, built a four-story factory, which had a capacity of 1,440 pairs of boots daily. In 1884 he placed on the market his well-known $3 shoe, with which his name and his face are so prominently identified. He has broken away from the old traditions of manufacturers by establishing retail stores, where he sells direct to the public. The Douglas factory of to-day was erected in 1892, and has a capacity of 10,240 pairs of boots daily. There are 2,724 employes. Mr. Douglas is Democratic in politics. He has been a member of the common council of Brockton several times and was its mayor in 1890. It was through his efforts that a bill was enacted in the state legislature of Massachusetts for the establishment of a board of arbitration and conciliation. Labor troubles are practically unknown in the Douglas factory. Mr. Douglas is also the author of the weekly payment law that observes in Massachusetts, is president of the people’s savings bank of Brockton, a director in the Home national bank and ex-president of the Brockton, Taunton & Bridgewater street railroad.

Charles Eastman.

Charles Eastman was born at Waterville, New York, July 12, 1854. Photographers, especially amateurs, need not be told who Mr. Eastman is, inasmuch as he has done much to popularize the camera and all that to it belongs. He was educated at Rochester, New York. Becoming interested in amateur photography, he began a source of exhausted experiments to the end of making dry plates and secured results which prompted him to make further investigations. These latter were successful also, and from this preliminary work rose the great business with which he is now identified. The kodak, which is probably the most popular of cameras in the world, is his invention also. He is manager of the Eastman Kodak Company, of Rochester, and of London, England; president of the General Aristo Company, of Rochester, and is the head of the so-called camera trust. Mr. Eastman is a member of many social and scientific organizations, and gives liberally to charitable institutions.

Albert August Pope.

The name of Colonel Albert August Pope is identified with the popularizing of the bicycle in this country, for he it was who, more than any other, gave it the impetus which made it a prime favorite with the public. Apart from that, however, he has furnished us with yet another example of the power of push, perseverance and probity. Colonel Pope was born in Boston, May 10, 1843, of poor parents. He had to leave school early in life in order to earn a livelihood. When ten years of age he peddled fruit, and it is said by persons who knew him in those days that he made it a rule to pay every debt as soon as it was due. After years of hard work young Pope, then nineteen, accepted a junior second lieutenancy in Company I, of the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers. His record during the war was most brilliant, and he came out of it with the rank of colonel. He then went into business for himself and built up a profitable trade. It was in the centennial exposition in 1876 that he first saw a bicycle. Realizing the future of the machine, he in 1877 placed an order for “an importation of English wheels.” In the same year he organized the Pope Manufacturing Company. The vast nature of the business done by the corporation is a matter of familiarity to all those who were or are interested in bicycles. He also founded the publication entitled The Wheelman, putting upward of sixty thousand dollars in the enterprise. It is known to-day under the name of Outing. It was mainly through his efforts that public parks and boulevards were thrown open to the uses of bicycles, and that the machine was put upon the same footing as any other vehicle. When the bicycle interest began to wane, Colonel Pope turned his attention to the manufacture of automobiles. He also has a large interest in banks and other corporations. He is a member of the Loyal Legion and a visitor to Wellesley college, and the Lawrence scientific school. In 1871 he married Abbie Lyndon, of Newton, Mass.

C. W. Post.

The name of C. W. Post is identified with an industry that has only come into existence within the past few years, but which, nevertheless, has assumed tremendous proportions, and is remarkable in many ways, not the least of which is that it puts cereals to uses which were absolutely unknown a generation ago. Postum cereal coffee, for example, has only been before the public since 1895. Yet recently Mr. Post and his associates declined an offer of ten millions of dollars for the factories which made the coffee and its associated products of the wheat field. Mr. Post’s life story is that of a boy with a light purse, boundless ambition and a determination to reach the goal of large successes. He was born October 26, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois. After a common school education he entered the University of Illinois when thirteen years of age, took a military course, and remained there until he was fifteen, when the spirit of independence which has been a characteristic of his career throughout asserted itself. To use his own words, “I became weary of depending on my father’s money.” Leaving the university, he obtained a position with a manufacturer of farm machinery, which he sold and put in operation for the purchasers. After a couple of years of this work, he began business for himself in conjunction with a partner in the appropriately named town of Independence, Kansas. The firm dealt in hardware and farm machinery. But too little capital hampered his efforts, so he sold out and again took up drumming. Later he became manager of a wholesale machinery house in Kansas City. Returning to Illinois, he organized a company for the manufacturing of plows and cultivators, was quite successful, but his health breaking down, chaos resulted, and he lost all his savings. After dabbling in real estate in California, he ranched in Texas, fell ill again, recovered, and then bought twenty-seven acres of ground at Battle Creek, Michigan. Here it was that he began to make the famous coffee, to which allusion has been made. Here, too, he experimented with prepared, and finally placed upon the market those cooked and semi-cooked cereal foods with which we are familiar at the breakfast-table. The first year that the Post products were before the public, there was a profit of $175,000, the second year showed a loss of over $40,000—this being due to profits being sunk in advertising—and the third year there was a clear gain of $384,000. From that time on the business has been most profitable. It is stated that the concern is now preparing to spend one million dollars a year for advertising. Two years ago Mr. Post retired from the active conduct of the concern. He now divides his time between the offices in this country and abroad, and the chain of factories in the west. He is president of the association of American advertisers, and maintains at his own expense the Post check currency bureau at Washington.

John Wilson Wheeler.

John Wilson Wheeler, whose name is familiar to every housewife who owns or wants to own a sewing machine, was born in Orange, Franklin county, Massachusetts, November 20, 1832, being the second of nine children. He was the son of a carpenter-farmer, and was educated in a district school. When about fourteen years of age he began to follow the trade of his father, and continued to do so until he was twenty-three years old. But he was not satisfied with his narrow surroundings, and so when the opportunity came for him to accept a place in a little grocery store in Fitchburg at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a year and his board he gladly accepted it. Returning to Orange some time later, he became a clerk in the store of one Daniel Pomeroy, finally succeeding the latter in the business, which he conducted for three years longer. Selling out, he became clerk in the claim agency of D. E. Chency, one of the leading men of the village. By this time he had established a reputation for ability and integrity, and so it came about that Mr. Chency and another of his friends loaned him two thousand dollars on his personal security to buy a grocery store. The venture was successful and was only given up in 1867, in order that Mr. Wheeler might become a partner in the firm of A. E. Johnson & Co. that had just started in a small way to make sewing machines. After some years of struggling the firm was turned into a corporation under the name of the Gold Medal Sewing Machine Company, Mr. Wheeler being secretary and treasurer. In 1882 the name was again changed to that of the New Home Sewing Machine Company. Of this corporation Mr. Wheeler was vice-president, as well as secretary and treasurer. He later became president, but subsequently resigned, but retained the office of treasurer, as well as being a member of the board of directors. How the business has grown from small beginnings to its present extensive status is a story that is familiar to everyone who knows somewhat of the sewing machine industry. The company employs nearly six hundred men and turns out about four hundred machines daily. Mr. Wheeler is also president of the Orange savings bank and of the Orange national bank, and has been president of the Orange Power company and the Orange board of trade. He has furthermore held office with the Boston mutual life insurance company, is the director of the Athol and Orange City railway company, is president of the Leabitt Machine company, of the Orange good government club and is vice-president of the Home Market club. He married Almira E. Johnson, by whom he had three daughters, only one of whom survives. He is the owner of much real estate, and is erecting a mansion near Orange at the cost of $150,000.