Background
He began work at his father"s firm, the United Cigar Manufacturers Company. He would later inherit nearly half a million dollars from his father, due to his success with the company.
He began work at his father"s firm, the United Cigar Manufacturers Company. He would later inherit nearly half a million dollars from his father, due to his success with the company.
Born to Jacob Wertheim of Hartford, Connecticut, and his wife, Hannah Frank of Hoboken, New Jersey, Wertheim was educated at the Doctor J. Sach"s School in New New York He then graduated from Harvard University in 1906 with a Bachelor of Arts and received his Master of Arts
Wertheim founded Wertheim & Company in 1927. In 1907. In his freshman year, he lived in Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard. He founded his own firm Wertheim & Company in 1927, developing a very successful business in mergers and acquisitions, and becoming wealthy in the process.
During World World War II, he served as a dollar-a-year man on the War Production Board in the administration of President Franklin Doctorate. Roosevelt.
Wertheim served on various boards and as a trustee for various organizations. He was trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, Mount Sinai Hospital, and The Nation.
He also served as president of the American Jewish Committee. Wertheim was an amateur chess player and patron of the game.
He served as the president of the Manhattan Chess Club, which he assisted financially and took an avid interest in playing correspondence chess.
He financed the 1941 United States. Chess Championship match between Samuel Reshevsky and I.A. Wertheim conceived of the idea for the 1946 chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union in Moscow and convinced the United States. State Department that it would make a difference in thawing the Cold War. He paid for all the costs, and personally led the team at the tournament. He was also actively interested in art, fishing, nature conservancy, and theater.
He was an active supporter of the New York Theatre Guild, where he later served as director overseeing the Guild"s operations.
He acquired 1,800 acres (73 km2) of land along the Carmans River on eastern Long Island for personal use to conserve waterfowl and for hunting. Wertheim amassed a notable collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works that contained many famous masterpieces, including paintings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh.
In his will, he arranged for the donation of his collection of French Impressionist paintings to the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. In 1963, Wertheim"s daughter, Barbara, established the Wertheim Study Room in the New York Public Library in honor of her father.
Member of New York State Industrial Board, 1913-1915. Member of advisory committee New York University Institute of Fine Arts.
Married Alma Morgenthau, 1909. Married second, Ruth White Warfield, March 1930. Children: Mistress Josephine West. Pomerance, Mistress Barbara West. Tuchman, Mistress Anne West. Langman.