Rash's Surname Index


Notes for John Nelson II WANAMAKER

WANAMAKER, John, cabinet officer, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., July 11, 1838; son of John Nelson and Elizabeth D. (Kockersperger) Wanamaker; and grandson of John and Elizabeth Wanamaker. His first maternal ancestor, a French Huguenot, came to America prior to 1750. He attended the common schools until 1852, when he began to earn his own living; was secretary of the Y.M.C. association of Philadelphia, 1857-61; began business in a clothing house in Philadelphia in 1861; in 1875 establisbed a general store, the first of its kind, under the title, John Wanamaker, conducted upon a system of his own and on a partially cooperative basis after 1867, and subsequently became successor of the business of A. T. Stewart in New York city. He declined the Republican nomination for representative-at-large to the 48th congress, and also the independent candidacy for mayor of Philadelphia, 1886; was presidential elector on the Harrison and Morton ticket, 1888, and a member of the national Republican executive committee, and was U.S. postmaster-general in President Harrison's cabinet, 1889-93. Mr. Wanamaker founded the Bethany Sunday-school of the Presbyterian denomination, 1858; was an organizer of the Christian Commission during the civil war; president of the Y. M. C. A. of Philadelphia, 1870-83; chairman of the bureau of revenue and of the press committee of the Centennial exposition of 1876, and actively associated with the municipal progress of Philadelphia.
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