John Daniel Hertz was born on April 10, 1879 in Ruttka, a village north of Budapest, now Sklabina, Slovakia. He was the son of Jacob Hertz and Katie Schlessinger. In 1884 his parents, desperately poor, migrated to Chicago.
Hertz ran away from home at eleven because of school problems and parental discipline. He paid the weekly fees to live in a Chicago waifs' home by working as a newsboy. His father found him and he returned home briefly.
Hertz had problems at school. He had no more formal schooling beyond the fifth grade.
For a while Hertz drove a livery wagon, then delivered information from sporting events to the Chicago Record. About 1895 he began writing sports news, a task he had to learn from scratch because he knew little of writing. Hertz was paid at space rates, and he turned in so much material that he earned more than regular staff reporters. He was also interested in athletics and often visited local gymnasiums. He fought in several exhibition boxing matches, but not being of championship caliber, he became a manager of two professional fighters, while continuing his sports writing.
His job ended a year after the Record merged with the Herald. A friend suggested in 1900 that Hertz sell automobiles. Hertz decided that selling cars was not much different from writing about sports, but his commissions the first year were about half of what he had earned as a sportswriter. His second and third years as an automobile salesman saw commissions rise tenfold. His technique was to promise to provide assistance for stranded customers at any hour of the day or night and to help them obtain necessary repairs.
Another turning point in Hertz's career was his purchase of an automobile agency partnership. His aggressive salesmanship made the business profitable. A third turning point came with his decision to use the cars traded in for a chauffeured livery business. This "ride-for-hire" business quickly became the most profitable part of the partnership. When drivers went out on strike over their conditions of employment, Hertz examined their grievances and broke the strike by his willingness to provide more for his men than they could through their own efforts. Hertz traveled to Europe to investigate metropolitan motor livery services. His findings led him to change taxi operations from a luxury business to one providing comfort without luxury at a lower price.
In 1915 he organized the Yellow Cab Company of Chicago, the nation's first dependable taxicab service. Because of a "chance reading of a scientific journal detailing color tests, " Hertz selected a shade of orange-yellow for his taxis as most visible and most impressive. Yellow Cab expanded quickly to more than a thousand other American cities, and Hertz became a millionaire while still in his thirties.
As his wealth increased, Hertz, who enjoyed horseback riding, bought land northwest of Chicago, near Cary. He established the family home and stables there. Eventually this 1, 800-acre property became one of the largest thoroughbred establishments in the country, with more than 100 horses on the grounds. Hertz's colors of yellow silks, black circle on sleeves, and yellow cap began to show up at many race tracks. Outstanding horses from these stables and from the family's stud farm near Paris, Kentucky, were Anita Peabody, Reigh Count, Count Fleet, and Count Turf.
Hertz helped to organize the club that purchased Arlington Park, near Chicago.
After Hertz learned how to operate taxicab companies, he began to build cabs. He organized the Chicago Motor Coach Company in 1922 to operate motor buses, and in 1924 he organized the Hertz Drive-Ur-Self Corporation, which he later sold to General Motors. In the 1920's the Fifth Avenue Coach Company of New York merged with the Chicago Coach Company to form Omnibus Corporation of America, and the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company became the Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company, a division of General Motors. At this high point in his career, in 1929, Hertz retired with a large fortune.
He became a director of Paramount-Publix Corporation in 1931, and for two years he was chairman of the firm's finance committee. In 1934 he became a partner in the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers. The Hertz Corporation was formed in 1954. The Fannie and John Hertz Engineering Scholarship Fund was created to assist 100 students for a year.
He died in Los Angeles, California.
Hertz arrived from Europe as a very poor young boy and matured into a prominent man of many accomplishments, most notably as a leader in the advent of the automotive age. His financial service during wartime brought Hertz the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the department's highest civilian award in 1958.
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Hertz married Frances L. Kesner on July 3, 1903; they had three children.
