Background
Emil Boas was born on November 15, 1854, in Goerlitz, Germany, the son of Louis and Minna Boas.
Emil Boas was born on November 15, 1854, in Goerlitz, Germany, the son of Louis and Minna Boas.
After attending the local schools Emil was sent to the Royal Frederick William Gymnasium, in Breslau, and then to the Sophia Gymnasium, in Berlin. He graduated at the unusually early age of eighteen.
After graduation Boas at once began work as a clerk in the banking office of C. B. Richard & Boas, of which an uncle of his was a member. In the following year he was transferred to the New York office of the firm, which was then the American representative of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company. By his close application to the interests of the company he attracted the attention of its heads and was promoted. In 1892, when the steamship company established a separate office in New York, he was made one of the three directors and also the general manager. In 1907 he became the sole director, or "resident manager. "
Boas witnessed the evolution of the ocean-going steamship from the packet type of the seventies to the huge liner of the present day. As a clerk in the Richard & Boas office he had made shipping his particular study and had become a master of technical detail. He took a leading part in building up the New York agency until it became the center and controlling pivot for a vast network of steamship routes, and he was energetic in all movements looking toward the improvement of commercial and traffic facilities. Following the Titanic disaster he was the first steamship manager to announce an intention of providing an adequate number of lifeboats for passengers and crew. He also began an investigation of safety devices, but his study was stopped by his death, less than a month later, at his summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut. He was an incredibly active man, and the strain of work is said to have worn him down. His activities, however, extended far beyond his business. His range of interests was wide, and the number of organizations to which he belonged was exceptionally large. An advocate of Germanic culture, he was a leading figure in the German societies. Above all, he was a life-long student, and to his acquaintances he gave the impression of being a scholar rather than a business man.
Emil Boas was one of the foremost business men of the metropolis. He was president and director of the Atlas Line Steamship Company and the Hamburg-American Line Terminal and Navigation Company, subsidiaries of HAPAG in the early twentieth century. For his services in the development of their commerce and in safeguarding the welfare of their subjects he was many times decorated by European rulers.
Emil Boas was married, March 20, 1888, to Harriet B. Sternfeld, who afterward became prominent in various women's organizations.
