Charles Albert Coffin

Background

Charles Albert Coffin, the son of Albert and Anstrus (Varncv) Coffin, was born on December 30, 1844 in Somerset County, Maine, United States.

Education

Coffin graduated from the Bloomfield (Maine) Academy.

Career

Coffin began his business career in Boston. His interest centered in the shoe and leather industry, and he soon helped to found the firm of Coffin & Clough, a shoe-manufacturing establishment at Lynn.

In 1883 he became one of the Lynn Syndicate, formed for the purchase of the American Electric Company of New Britain, Connecticut, the head of which was Elihu Thomson. The plant was moved to Lynn and the name of the Company changed to the Thomson-LIouston Electric Company. Coffin himself knew little about electrical matters at this time, but he had a genius for organization and the ability to surround himself with the very best men in the technical field. He interested himself keenly in the work of such men as Elihu Thomson, Edwin J. Houston, and E. W. Rice. In 1892 the Thomson-Houston Company was consolidated with the Edison General Electric Company of New York in which all the activities and interests of Edison’s incandescent lamp development had been merged. Coffin was elected president of the new firm, which took the name of the General Electric Company, and he held this office until 1913. From 1913 to 1922 he was chairman of the board of directors.

During the World War (1915) Coffin created the War Relief Clearing House. After this was consolidated with the Red Cross, he transferred his tireless energy to the latter. He aided in the establishment of American scholarships for France and was generous in assisting young people, both in America and abroad, in their efforts toward an education. The Charles A. Coffin Foundation, created by the Board of the General Electric Company at the time of his retirement from active participation in its affairs, carries on some of his educational work through the award of fellowships to college graduates interested in continuing their research activities.

Achievements

• Charles Albert Coffin made the great contribution to the growth of the General Electric Company. In 1873 the Company’s gross business was twelve million dollars a year; in 1920 it was almost a million dollars a day. Coffin supported the work of the Company’s engineers in developing the Curtis Steam Turbine which revolutionized the primary power sources in electric light and power stations. He indorsed the movement in 1901 to establish the research laboratory which has contributed not only to electrical development but to the advancement of pure science. In recognition of his war work Coffin was made an officer of the Legion of Honor (France); commander of the Order of Leopold II of Belgium; and a member of the Order of St. Sava of Serbia.

Personality

Coffin was a modest man who shunned publicity always and who found joy in his domestic life, his books, and his flowers.

Quotes from others about the person

• “Coffin stands supreme in contributing more to create the magnitude of the whole electrical industry than any one or many men, by his encouragement of invention along useful lines, by his financial powers, by his talent for organization, by his tireless energy, by his course in introducing and his abilities in selling new apparatus. ” - T. C. Martin and S. L. Coles

Connections

Coffin was married in 1872 to Caroline Russel of Holbrook, Massachusetts.

Father:

Albert Coffin

Mother:

Anstrus (Varncv) Coffin

Spouse:

Caroline Russel

References

• Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders 4 volumes: Set.
• Men and volts;: The story of General electric,