Background
Richard Samuel Reynolds Sr. was born on August 15, 1881 in Bristol, Tennessee, the son of Abram David Reynolds, a prosperous tobacco merchant, and Senah Ann Hoge Reynolds.
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Richard Samuel Sr. Reynolds
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended local public schools and graduated at the age of seventeen from King College in Bristol. After briefly studying law at Columbia University, Reynolds enrolled in the University of Virginia Law School.
Career
In 1902 his uncle, tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, persuaded him to leave law school and join his company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as a secretary. Five years later the R. J. Reynolds Company (later Reynolds Tobacco) challenged the American Tobacco Company trust by introducing Prince Albert, a new brand of smoking tobacco, for which Richard Reynolds had devised a moisturesaving tin container that preserved tobacco better than cheesecloth bags. Prince Albert quickly achieved popularity, aided by a national advertising campaign instituted by Reynolds, who had been promoted to sales manager. Although offered a considerable sum of money to remain, he resigned a vice-presidency in 1912 to establish his own business.
Reynolds returned to Bristol and formed the Reynolds Corporation, which manufactured soap powders from the abundant supply of crystal silica found there. A fire destroyed the factory, however, and operations were transferred to a plant in Louisville, Ky. , in 1915. Soon after the United States entered World War I, soap powders were declared nonessential for the war effort and Reynolds faced bankruptcy. Fortunately he developed a waterproof ammunition container of paper and steel that proved more economical than all-steel containers. This innovation won him a government contract and his company was saved. After the war Reynolds concentrated on the metals business. In 1919, with financial backing from Reynolds Tobacco, the U. S. Foil Company was incorporated, with Reynolds as president. The company specialized in rolling tin and lead for cigarette packages and gum wrappers. Optimistic that aluminum would be the metal of the future, Reynolds in 1926 decided to divert production to aluminum foil.
By 1928 he was majority stockholder of U. S. Foil; in that year he formed the Reynolds Metals Company, and U. S. Foil became a holding company. Soon several plants were opened on the East Coast, and Reynolds Metals began buying up many of its metal foil competitors. Convinced that diversification was essential, Reynolds had acquired controlling interest in such companies as the Eskimo Pie Corporation (1924) and Robertshaw Thermostat (1928), which later became Robertshaw-Fulton Controls Company. Through such diversification and aggressive merchandising, Reynolds withstood the Great Depression.
Expansion of Reynolds Metals in 1938 to include sheet, rod, and extrusion fabrication required additional raw aluminum that the sole domestic producer, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), could not supply. On a trip to Europe, Reynolds found the needed source in France and also observed Germany's use of aluminum for aircraft manufacturing. Convinced that light metals such as aluminum would play a crucial role in the impending European war, he warned of the necessity for increased production.
Nevertheless, in early 1940 the American National Defense Advisory Commission stated that there was no shortage. Even after the fall of France in June 1940, Reynolds failed to shake the complacent view of Alcoa's board chairman, Arthur V. Davis, that the country had sufficient reserves for national defense. Reynolds then decided to produce his own aluminum, and his company became the first to challenge Alcoa's monopoly. Banks and government agencies alike refused to take the risk of lending him capital until, through the intervention of Alabama's Senator Lister Hill, he secured a $15. 8 million loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
As collateral he posted first mortgages on all his plants. Within only six months - by May 1941 - Reynolds had constructed a fully integrated facility at the Listerhill plant near Sheffield, Ala. Although Alcoa immediately cut its price when he began producing aluminum, Reynolds built more plants, acquired a bauxite site in Arkansas, and produced over 500, 000 tons of aluminum for the war effort in his own plants and in those he operated for the government. As a result of a massive wartime construction program, the government owned over half the nation's aluminum production facilities by 1945.
According to the Surplus Property Act of 1944, they had to be disposed of in such a way as to stimulate competition. Fortunately for Reynolds, a 1945 court decision declaring Alcoa a monopoly prohibited Alcoa from acquiring these plants; but potential competitors claimed they could not afford them unless granted a subsidy. Finally, after receiving lower electric rates from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Reynolds agreed in April 1946 to lease, with the option to buy, the mammoth Hurricane Creek, Arkansas, aluminum facility. By 1947 he had leased five more plants, after discovering a sufficient supply of bauxite in Haiti. The company focused on an aluminum foil called Reynolds Wrap and initiated a successful postwar national advertising program to make the public more conscious of the versatility of aluminum. Aside from business affairs Reynolds achieved a reputation as the "poet-industrialist. "
In September 1937, to encourage both poetry and home building, he arranged a meeting of writers to compose a collective poem on homes. He contributed frequently to the North American Review and published War Enthroned and Other Poems (1936) and Crucible: Poems (1950).
When he resigned as president of Reynolds Metals in August 1948 to become board chairman, he was succeeded by his eldest son, R. S. Reynolds, Jr. ; his other sons also held important executive positions.
Achievements
Connections
Reynolds and his wife, Julia Louise Parham, whom he married December 3, 1905, had four sons.
