investor manufacturer philanthropist
He was born on a farm near Greensburg, in Trumbull County, Ohio, the son of Lucius Stiles (or Styles) Ball and Maria Polly Bingham Ball, both of whom had been born in Canada. Ball's father, a farmer who had also invented an egg carrier, moved the family frequently before settling in 1868 in Canandaigua, New York.
There Ball attended the public schools and Canandaigua Academy.
After their father's death in early 1878, two of the Ball brothers, Frank Clayton and Edmund Burke, accepted an uncle's suggestion and began a small-scale manufacturing business in Buffalo, N. Y. After several unsuccessful ventures, in 1880 the two young men, using a borrowed $200, purchased a small company that made wooden-jacketed tin cans for transporting paints, varnishes, and oil. The two oldest Ball brothers, Lucius Lorenzo and William Charles, soon joined the firm, which in 1882 began to manufacture glass containers, encased in sheet metal and fitted with spouts and filler caps, designed for the household handling of kerosene.
George Ball joined the family enterprise in 1883 and brought to it a new boldness and imagination. Seeking new products for their surplus glass-making capacity, the Balls inaugurated the manufacture of glass canning jars in 1884, making use of John L. Mason's recently expired patent on screw-fitted jars, which could be hermetically sealed by using metal screw caps and rubber rings or sealing wax. The Ball company grew rapidly, but when a fire destroyed the glass works in 1886 the brothers decided to relocate their operations nearer both the midwestern markets and the rich natural gas fields that had just been discovered in Ohio and Indiana. A long search for the proper site ended when a Muncie, Indiana, citizen's committee offered them free gas for five years, seven acres of land, and relocation expenses. Construction of the plant began in 1887, and the first Ball Brothers glass was produced in Muncie in March 1888. Some company operations other than glass-making continued in Buffalo for a short time, but the entire Ball family soon relocated in Muncie.
Frank Ball remained the president of the tightly knit family corporation for 63 years, until his death in 1943; George Ball eventually became company president at the age of eighty, but after three years relinquished the position to a nephew. The Ball business was such that it thrived in depression periods, dominating the glass container market in the 1930's. The company initiated many new marketing and packaging techniques, eventually selling complete home canning kits in corrugated paper boxes of its own manufacture. George Ball in particular pushed for a more diversified product line, based upon the glass, zinc, rubber, and paper production facilities of the company, and a fifth major product line - plastics - was added during his final years. He also produced the company's first home canning manual and recipe booklet in 1905, from which the famous Ball Blue Books, now circulated in the millions, evolved. Collectively the Ball family undertook a series of philanthropic activities. In 1918 they purchased and presented to the state of Indiana the institution now known as Ball State University; it has received in excess of $2 million from the family. They also built the Ball Memorial Hospital and the Masonic Temple auditorium, contributed heavily to the YMCA and YWCA building programs, and made significant contributions to other Indiana institutions. George Ball was particularly interested in the Riley Memorial Hospital for Children and in Indiana University, on whose board of trustees he served for 19 years (1919 - 1938). He promoted the affiliation of Riley Hospital with Indiana University Medical School, and served on the governing board of the Riley Memorial Association from its inception in 1921 until his death. Ball also succeeded his brother Frank on the board of trustees of Ball State, serving from 1943 to 1954. In 1935 Ball suddenly gained public attention through a dramatic Wall Street coup by which he acquired controlling interest in the enormous Van Sweringen railroad empire. With George A. Tomlinson of Cleveland, who soon sold out to Ball, he bought the $3 billion empire for $3, 121, 000 at a receiver's sale, a purchase that brought him an unwanted national prominence, including an appearance in 1936 before Senator Burton K. Wheeler's Committee on Interstate Commerce, which was investigating railroad and other holding companies. Defending his actions firmly and with wry humor, Ball viewed the transaction both as a promising investment and as a means of permitting the bankrupt Van Sweringen brothers to continue to operate their 23, 000-mile rail network. Ball remained in the headlines, however, after the sudden deaths of both O. P. and M. J. Van Sweringen; by 1937 the fruit-jar manufacturer found himself in control of their previous holdings in transportation, real estate, and manufacturing properties. Never intending to operate the railroads (which included the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Nickel Plate, the Erie, and the Missouri Pacific lines) or the other companies, Ball transferred the shares of his holding company Midamerica Corporation, to the newly created George and Frances Ball Foundation in 1937, which promptly sold the stocks to Robert R. Young and two partners.
In the final dozen years of his life he continued to participate in civic and corporate affairs, working daily at his office until a month before his death.
The Ball brothers' firm became a global manufacturer of plastic and metal food and beverage containers as well as a manufacturer of equipment and supplier of services to the aerospace industry. In addition to the brothers' manufacturing business, they were also noted for their philanthropy and community service.
A reserved, dignified man whose white hair and mustache became identifying characteristics in his later life, Ball was clearly the most versatile and active of the five Ball brothers. In addition to his service on countless corporate, charitable, and educational boards, he was the Republican National Committeeman from Indiana during the difficult years from 1932 to 1937; he was an ardent collector of rare books and manuscripts; and he traveled widely throughout the United States. Highly energetic, Ball was described in 1937 as the "most determined user of the telephone in America, " as a traveler who averaged "three nights each week on trains, " and as a motorist who drove "like Barney Oldfield".
George Ball traveled back to Buffalo in 1893 to marry Frances Woodworth; their only child, a daughter, was born in Muncie four years later.
