Background
James Bell was born on June 30, 1847, in Philadelphia, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Faust) Bell.
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James Stroud Bell
Edit ProfileEducation
After graduating from the Central High School in that city at the age of sixteen, James began work in his father's milling and flour brokerage establishment. He received a thorough training in every department of the business.
Career
James was admitted to the firm (which now became Samuel Bell & Sons) as a partner, and here he remained for twenty years. The firm was a sales agent for Washburn, Crosby & Company, operating by lease the mills of the C. C. Washburn Flouring Mills Company in Minneapolis, and through the connection Bell came to be well known to the officers of this company. The year 1888 was a critical one for the milling industry. Speculators had forced up the price of flour beyond an export basis, and the millers - particularly the Minneapolis company, which in 1887 had sold forty per cent of its product abroad - faced the necessity of making an intensive cultivation of the home market.
Bell was asked to become a partner in the firm, and on his acceptance it was reorganized (September 1888), as Washburn, Martin & Company. He at once took a leading part in its direction, and when, a year later, it was changed to a corporation, under the name of the Washburn-Crosby Company, he was chosen president. He had been a miller and a broker of mill products; he was now to become a merchant miller - perhaps, as the press termed him at the time of his death, "the greatest merchant miller of the world. "
In methods of reaching the public, both with his product and with the arguments for buying it, he was an originator; he placed on the market a wide range of cereal preparations in attractively labeled cartons, and by effective advertising made them known throughout the country. Under his control the corporation steadily expanded. In 1899 the leased mills were bought and the capital stock was increased to $1, 200, 000. A branch mill was built at Buffalo in 1903, another in the following year at Louisville, and others later at Great Falls and at Kalispell, Montana. Further increases in the capital stock were made in 1903 and 1907 and again in 1909, when it was placed at $6, 000, 000. At the time of his death the productive capacity of the mills, which had been 8, 000 barrels a day when he joined the company, had risen to 27, 700 barrels.
Bell had wide commercial and financial interests; for many years he was vice-president of the Minneapolis Trust Company as well as of three other companies and a director of the Northwestern National Bank. The obituaries of Bell give him a commanding position in the trade; no other man, said the Northwestern Miller, in so short a time made so great an impress on the milling industry.
Achievements
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James Bell was a profound businessman who served as president of the Washburn-Crosby Milling Company from 1889 until his death in 1915. Under his control the corporation steadily expanded. At the time of his death the productive capacity of the mills, which had been 8, 000 barrels a day when he joined the company, had risen to 27, 700 barrels. Bell also served as vice-president of the Minneapolis Trust Company and a director of the Northwestern National Bank.
Personality
Among his personal qualities, his helpful kindness to young men, many of whom, by his encouragement, Bell set on the pathway to material success. Though a strict disciplinarian, he was not an autocrat; his democracy and humaneness were shown, said one, by the fact that men could take orders from him and still love him. His business standards were of the highest; his word was his bond, and though hesitant in making promises he was faithful in keeping them.
Connections
James Bell was twice married - on January 8, 1873, to Sallie Montgomery Ford, who died, and on September 28, 1912, to Mabel Sargent.
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Born
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Died
April 5, 1915 (aged 67) -
Nationality
American