William Boeing was an American businessman, industrialist, and aviation pioneer. Boeing went from being a general businessman to a giant in the aviation business during the 1940s. He founded the company that brought forth important breakthroughs in the field of aviation technology and the airline business. The Boeing Airplane Company became one of the signature corporations of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest and dominated the regional economy.
Background
Ethnicity:
Both Boeing's parents were European immigrants. His father was originally from Hohenlimburg, Germany, while his mother was born in Vienna, Austria.
William Boeing was born on October 1, 1881, in Detroit, Michigan, the United States, to Marie M. Ortmann and Wilhelm Böing. The family was wealthy and owned substantial timber and mining interests in Michigan and Minnesota.
William had two sisters, Caroline and Gretchen. All three childrens’ first names, and surnames, became anglicized. Wilhelm became William, the trema over the "ö" in the surname disappeared, and the "e" was added to transform it into Boeing.
The elder Boeing made his fortune as a timber baron, purchasing an immense region of the Mesabi Mountain Range rich in iron and pine. He was a strict father and only wanted the best for his son providing William with the finest education available in both America and Switzerland.
Unfortunately, the elder Boeing died when William was only eight years old, but not before he served as a catalyst for his son’s future successes. His mother later remarried, but Boeing was not close to his stepfather.
Education
Boeing was sent to several prestigious boarding schools, including the Sellig Brothers School in Vevey, Switzerland. Boeing then entered Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School with the class of 1904, but he would leave school with only a year left.
After leaving the university, Boeing moved to Seattle, where he became a prominent timberman, landowner, and yachtsman. William Boeing bought large timberlands around Grays Harbor on the Olympic Peninsula and acquired necessary permits for lumber operations. This turned out to be a successful venture. The revenue generated here was utilized by him when he joined the aviation industry.
Boeing was a sailing enthusiast and had worked on various boat designs. During his tenure as president of Greenwood Timber Company, he traveled to Seattle and attended the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. He instantly developed an interest in aircraft and enrolled at the Glenn L. Martin Flying School in Los Angeles.
He also bought one of Martin’s plans. Martin pilot James Floyd Smith went to Seattle to put together Boeing’s recently-purchased Martin TA hydro aeroplane and give Boeing further training. Inspired by the new field of aviation, he organized the Boeing Airplane Company in 1915 with a friend, Conrad Westervelt, hoping to build better airplanes than the wooden ones then being used.
Using the design structure of the Martin Plane, Boeing’s version featured greater wingspan and lighter construction, but most importantly new pontoons, which they blamed for causing the accident. The shipyard in Seattle’s harbor was converted to a makeshift aircraft plant employing skilled workers from his boating facility to construct an airplane. Boeing himself flew the Mallard, the first of two B&W planes, on its inaugural flight on June 15th, 1916.
The United States formally joined World War I on April 8, 1917. About a month after that, Boeing was successful in securing a 50-plane order from the United States Navy. Boeing kept an office in the center of Seattle, but he also spent time in Washington, D.C. Airplanes had proven their effectiveness in battle, and Boeing knew military contracts would play a role in his company's growth.
After the war ended, the company came into its own, the demand for planes fell. It shifted its focus to manufacturing commercial aircraft. The company built one new plane in 1919, the B-1, then received a government contract to build two hundred fighter planes. That job guaranteed Boeing's survival. In 1920, former Boeing pilot Eddie Hubbard won one of the first contracts to deliver international airmail, flying the B-1. Boeing, however, remained focused on military aircraft for several more years, before finally building a plane designed to carry mail. This plane, the 40-A, also Boeing's first passenger plane, was followed by larger models.
In July 1927, Boeing Air Transport began flying mail and passengers on its M-40 plane between San Francisco and Chicago. Still, the company's major business during the 1920s was derived from the production of fighter planes for the army.
In 1929, William Boeing along with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney founded the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. A vertically-integrated company, the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation invested in every facet of aviation. They soon bought out a number of small airlines and merged them with Boeing’s airlines to form the United Air Lines.
By 1933, four enormous holding companies, among them United Aircraft and Transport, dominated American aviation at all levels. Despite the worldwide economic depression beginning in 1929, the airline and airplane business flourished and by 1933 the public and politicians resented what they viewed as corporate profiteering. In 1934, the United States government leveled allegations against William Boeing that he was monopolizing the aviation industry. That year, the Air Mail Act compelled aeroplane companies to segregate flight operations from development and manufacturing.
William Boeing retired in 1934 after he was ordered to break up his company conglomerate. He walked away from a company he built from the ground up and into which he had poured so much of his money and resources to keep it afloat after World War I. In the end, the public highly scrutinized Boeing’s acquisitions and the money which flowed from his acute business sense.
Boeing sold his interests in the Boeing Airplane Co. but continued to work on other business ventures. He became one of America's most successful breeders of thoroughbred horses. He never lost his interest in aviation, and during World War II he volunteered as a consultant to the company.
William Edward Boeing started his professional life as a lumberman and ended as a real-estate developer and horse breeder, but in between, he founded the company that brought forth important breakthroughs in the field of aviation technology and the airline business.
Most of this success came as a result of the need for new weapons. World War II was the first major war to be fought with the extensive use of airplanes in a variety of capacities, and airplanes were what Boeing provided.
In 1934 his efforts were rewarded when he received the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for successful pioneering and achievement in aircraft design and manufacturing.
On December 15th, 1966, William Boeing was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. In 1984, Boeing became an inductee into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. In 1947, Washington State College at Pullman awarded Boeing an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
Views
Boeing supported several charitable organizations, one of which was Children's Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle. During the Great Depression, more than 90 percent of the care Children's delivered was free, which left the hospital in the red. Each of those years, a committee of the women trustees went to Boeing, who wrote a personal check for the deficit - on the condition that his involvement remained anonymous. His contributions were not revealed until more than 50 years after his death by which time Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center had become one of the top pediatric institutions in the nation.
Throughout the years, he displayed racist tendencies. From 1935 to 1944, he and his wife put aside an extensive area of land. In the following years, communities like Richmond Beach, Richmond Heights, Innis Arden, Blue Ridge, and Shoreview sprang up there. Intending to implement segregation on their land, the Boeings issued racially restrictive covenants.
They proscribed properties from being sold, conveyed, rented, or leased in whole or in part to any person, not of the White or Caucasian race. Non-whites were allowed to acquire property in the land only if they were the hired help of a person of the White or Caucasian race.
Quotations:
"Hard work can lick what appear to be insurmountable difficulties."
"Protection Through Preparedness."
"Our job is to keep everlastingly at research and experiment, to adapt our laboratories to production as soon as practicable, to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by."
Membership
Boeing joined the University Club, an exclusive venue for college-trained men on their way up the Northwest business ladder.
University Club
Interests
Fishing, horse breeding
Sport & Clubs
Yachting, horse racing, golf, boating
Connections
In 1921, William Boeing exchanged wedding vows with Bertha Marie Potter Paschall. He was Bertha’s second husband. The newlyweds were joined by Bertha’s sons, Nathaniel Jr. and Cranston. Their son, William E. Boeing Jr. was born in 1923. Both Boeing stepsons entered the aircraft manufacturing business and his son went into real estate.
Father:
Wilhelm Böing
Boeing's father, Wilhelm Boing, a veteran of the Austro-Prussian War, emigrated to the United States in 1868 from North Rhine-Westphalia.
Mother:
Marie M. Ortmann
Spouse:
Bertha Marie Potter Paschall
Sister:
Gretchen Boeing
Sister:
Caroline Boeing
Son:
William E. Boeing Jr.
Boeing Jr. was best known for his philanthropic support of education, the University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the city’s Museum of Flight.
Though he never worked at his father’s company, he helped the museum secure the Red Barn, the original Boeing plant in Seattle.
stepson:
Cranston Paschall
stepson:
Nathaniel "Nat" Paschall Jr.
Friend:
George Conrad Westervelt
George joined the University Club, where he met William Boeing. The two became friends, finding a shared enthusiasm for flying.
