Charles
Lewis Tiffany
Born: Killingly;
February 15, 1812
Died: Yonkers, New York; February 18, 1902
Charles
Lewis Tiffany, a descendant of Humphrey Tiffany who was a resident
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by 1660, went from managing his
father's small general store in eastern Connecticut to the leadership
of the jewelry trade in America and the ownership of Tiffany and
Company on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Tiffany
was educated in a district school and at an academy in Plainfield.
His father, the owner of a cotton-manufacturing company, started
a general store which Charles at age fifteen managed. Charles
subsequently had additional snatches of education and worked in
the office of his farther's expanding mill. In 1837 Charles and
a schoolmate, John B. Young, went to New York City and opened
a small stationery and notions store with $1,000 capital borrowed
from the senior Tiffany. The partners overcame $4.38 in total
sales during the first three days of the business, and by 1839
they were selling glassware, cutlery, porcelain, clocks, and jewelry.
In
1841 the firm became Tiffany, Young and Ellis and undertook expansion
of both the physical size and sales goals of the store. Establishing
a reputation for selling only the finest articles, the company
specialized in Bohemian glass and porcelain and began to manufacture
jewelry. The firm was reorganized under the name Tiffany and Company
in the early 1850s; operated branches abroad (Paris, 1850 and
London, 1868); and relocated uptown on Fifth Avenue.
By
the time of his death in 1902, Charles Tiffany operated a company
capitalized at over $2 million and acknowledged as the greatest
jewelry company in North America. In addition to his entrepreneurial
activities, Tiffany was one of the founders of the New York Society
of Fine Arts and a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One
of Tiffany's children, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1922), was
a distinguished designer of jewelry, rugs, and textiles and
was
especially active in glassmaking, devising a process for production
of "Favrile glass."
For
Further Reading
Bing,
Samuel. Artistic America, Tiffany Glass and Act. Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1970.
Purtell,
Joseph. Tiffany Touch. New York, 1971.
Entry
by David M. Roth
*
Entry under revision.
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