Richard Samuel Reynolds, Senior

1881 - 1955  (73 years)

• Name	Richard Samuel Reynolds  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
  Suffix	Senior
  Born	15 Aug 1881	Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee   [1, 2, 3, 5, 7]
  Gender	Male
  Alt. Birth	15 Aug 1881  [8]
  Education	1900-1902	Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee   [5]
  	King's College
  	University of Virginia, also Columbia University.
  Biographical	1903-1912  [5]
  	he worked for his uncle R. J. at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
  	He resigned in 1912.
  Biographical	1919  [4, 5]
  	started the U. S. Foil Company
  	He organized his own business and was president and director.
  Biographical	Aft 1919  [5]
  	was president, director, or chairman of the board of a lot of companies
  	Presidente & Director – Reynolds Alloys Company – Reynolds Research Institute, Incorporated Chairman of the Board – Reynolds Sales Company – Reynolds Metal Company – Reynolds Research Corporation – Reynolds Corporation – Reynolds Mining Corporation – Eskimo Pie Corporation – Robertshaw Fulton Controls Company – Richmond Radiator Company – Reynolds Internacional de Mexico – Reynolds Reduction Company Director – Mutual Trading Corporation – Reynolds Jamaica Mines, Limited – Plantation Yacht Harbor Incorporated – Reynolds Aluminum Company – U. S. Sanitary Manufacturing Company
  History	1926  [4]
  	Reynolds Metals began using aluminum foil
  Died	29 Jul 1955  [2, 4, 5]
  Alt. Death	Aug 1955  [8]
  Biographical	belonged to a lot of clubs  [5]
  	– The New York Yacht Club – The Metropolitan Club – The Nassau County Club (New York) – Pendennis, Pendennis (Louisville) – Country Club of Virginia (Richmond) – The Surf Club (Miami Beach) – The Indian Creek Country Club (Miami Beach) – The Hialeah Club (Miami Beach)
  Religion	Presbyterian  [5]
  Residence	Louisville, Jefferson, Kentucky   [1, 2]
  Residence	Richmond City, Virginia   [5]
  	300 Old Lock Lane
  	His office was at the Reynolds Metals Building, Richmond 18, Virginia.
  Person ID	I6961	If the Legends Are True...
  Last Modified	25 Jun 2016

  
  

  Father	Major Abram David Reynolds,   b. 13 Aug 1847, Patrick County, Virginia ,   d. Sep 1925  (Age 78 years)
  Mother	Senah Anne Hoge,   b. 20 Jul 1849, Wheatland, Giles County, Virginia ,   d. 7 Oct 1925, Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee  (Age 76 years)
  Married	1 Oct 1872
  Family ID	F2521	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Julia Louise Parham,   b. 1882,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Married	21 Dec 1904  [1, 8]
  	Who's Who has Dec. 1905.
  Children	+ 1. Richard Samuel Reynolds, Junior,   b. 27 May 1908, Winston-Salem, Forsyth, North Carolina ,   d. 5 Oct 1980, Richmond City, Virginia  (Age 72 years) + 2. Julian Louis Reynolds,   d. Yes, date unknown + 3. William Gray Reynolds,   b. 1913, Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee ,   d. 19 Oct 1980, Richmond City, Virginia  (Age 67 years) + 4. David Parham Reynolds,   b. 16 Jun 1915, Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Last Modified	13 Dec 2009
  Family ID	F2561	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Reynolds → Richard Samuel, Senior R. S. Reynolds of Reynolds Metals, Reynolds Wrap, etc...

  
  

• Notes

  The entrepreneurial spirit clearly runs in the Reynolds family: Richard S. Reynolds, creator of "Reynolds Wrap" was the nephew of tobacco king R. J. Reynolds. In fact, the younger Reynolds worked for his uncle during the summers of his youth, until in 1919, he started his own business, the U.S. Foil Co., supplying tin-lead wrappers to cigarette and candy companies. In the 1920s, the price of aluminum dropped, and Reynolds switched from tin to this new lightweight, non-corrosive metal. The material's advantages were numerous, including that it could be rolled much thinner than existing metal packaging and was less expensive because of the greater yield of foil per pound of metal. In addition, aluminum foil was more brilliant and more appealing to the eye. Moreover, it had protective qualities which made it valuable as a packaging material. In 1924, Reynolds and his Louisville, Kentucky-based company bought the enterprise that made Eskimo Pies, which were wrapped in foil. Four years later, Reynolds purchased Robertshaw Thermostat, Fulton Sylphon, and part of Beechnut Foil, adding the companies to U.S. Foil to form Reynolds Metals. In 1926, the company began using aluminum foil as a packaging material for the first time. By 1930, Reynolds sales had reached nearly $13 million. Continuing to expand and grow, the company moved its headquarters to New York City. The company created the first high-speed, gravure-printed foil, aluminum bottle labels, heat-sealed foil bags for foods and foil-laminated building insulation paper. In 1938, the company's executive offices were moved again, this time to Richmond, Virginia. Reynolds could see in the late 1930s that it was possible that the United States would enter World War II. He knew that meant demand for aluminum would increase, as it could be employed in many of the supplies troops would need overseas. At that time, Reynolds Metals began mining bauxite (aluminum ore) in Arkansas in 1940 and opened its first aluminum plant near Sheffield, Alabama, the following year. In 1947, the company came up with its most famous creation, Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil, which sells extraordinarily well in supermarkets all over the world today and transformed food storage everywhere. Meanwhile, Reynolds Metals pioneered the development of aluminum siding in 1945, and R.S. Reynolds began predicting a growing demand for additional aluminum during peacetime. He knew it wouldn't take long before new aluminum-producing facilities would need to be built to meet demand. Reynolds Metals Company leased, and later bought, six government plants that were up for disposal. Reynolds continued to grow, opening mining operations both in the US and around the world. The company also began to introduce new consumer and industrial products -- in 1982, for example it introduced Reynolds Plastic Wrap. On May 3, 2000 the company merged with Alcoa to become the largest aluminum company in the United States. Over the years, Reynolds' four sons had each played an important part in the company's success. In 1948, at a Board of Directors meeting, Reynolds announced that he would be turning over the leadership of the company to his sons. He remained actively involved in the company, however, until his death in 1955. [December 2001] Inventor of the Week – Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reynolds, Richard Samuel, Sr. (15 Aug. 1881-29 July 1955), industrialist, was born in Bristol, Tennessee, the son of Abraham David Reynolds, the owner of a profitable tobacco business, and Senah Ann Hoge. After graduating in 1898 from King College in Bristol, Reynolds studied law at Columbia University and, subsequently, at the University of Virginia. However, his uncle Richard J. Reynolds convinced him to join his tobacco firm, the R. J. Reynolds Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When Reynolds joined his uncle's firm in 1903, the company relied on a single product line, chewing tobacco, leaving the market for smoking tobacco to the Tobacco Trust, a powerful coalition of tobacco interests that then dominated the industry. Reynolds convinced his uncle to compete with the trust by putting out a smoking product made from mild leaf tobacco. The new Prince Albert brand was the first sold in tins, which helped preserve tobacco moisture. Despite determined efforts by the large firms to exclude the Reynolds Company from new markets and product lines, Prince Albert proved an immediate success for the firm, which Reynolds built on by initiating a national advertising campaign and introducing the Camel cigarette brand. Yet at the height of his success, Reynolds chose to leave his uncle's company, probably realizing that the company's future lay with his uncle's two sons. Reynolds married Julia Louise Parham in 1905, and they had four children. Concerned for his children's future, Reynolds decided to strike out on his own. In 1912 Reynolds returned to Bristol and launched the Reynolds Corporation, which manufactured soap. The young entrepreneur again exhibited a talent for new product lines and merchandising as his company successfully produced a wide variety of household cleansers. But as his company expanded into the national market, Reynolds faced two serious challenges. First, his plant burned down, forcing him to relocate to Louisville; then, the outbreak of World War I created shortages in raw materials and transport bottlenecks that drove his business to the brink of bankruptcy. Once again, Reynolds's innovative talent salvaged his business career. He developed a new, waterproof gunpowder container that replaced existing steel vessels with drums made of steel and asphalt felt paper. The new containers won him a government contract and restored prosperity to his business. When the armistice eliminated the demand for wartime products, Reynolds once again shifted direction and entered the metal foil business. Reynolds's past ties to the tobacco industry served as the basis for this venture. Foil was in increasingly heavy demand as packaging for cigarettes, and the Tennessee entrepreneur secured financing from the British-American and R. J. Reynolds tobacco companies, both of which were interested in expanding a tin foil market then dominated by a handful of firms and marked by serious shortages of the product. Once again, Reynolds successfully penetrated a tightly controlled market by relying on innovation and intense merchandising efforts. His U.S. Foil Company, incorporated in 1919, dramatically reduced production costs by introducing techniques for eliminating much of the labor-intensive handling of heavy lead ingots. Lower costs enabled the company to survive a price war launched by the established powers in the industry. By the mid-1920s Reynolds became convinced that aluminum would replace heavier metals like tin and lead as the principal type of foil. Accordingly, he built a plant in Louisville devoted to the production of aluminum foil, although the company also produced other products such as pastes for paint. Through an aggressive merchandising campaign, the firm expanded the domestic market for foil packaging. As a part of that strategy, U.S. Foil moved directly into the consumer products industry with its acquisition of the Eskimo Pie Corporation. In 1928 Reynolds reorganized his business interests, creating the Reynolds Metals Company, leaving U.S. Foil to function as a holding company. Reynolds Metals provided the platform from which the aluminum foil magnate launched his most ambitious undertaking... While the aluminum foil business remained competitive, production of aluminum was monopolized by the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa). By 1939 Alcoa could no longer supply Reynolds Metals with the ingots it required to produce an increasingly diverse range of products. Anticipating the problem, Reynolds had traveled to France in 1937 to secure aluminum pig for his foil business. While in Europe, Reynolds took note of Germany's emergence as the world's leading aluminum producer and the use of the metal in Hitler's rearmament program, particularly in the manufacture of aircraft. Sensing an opportunity to expand his own business and serve his country's interests, Reynolds urged Alcoa's chair of the board, Arthur Vining Davis, to triple the company's output. After Davis rejected the proposal, Reynolds attempted to enter the aluminum production industry directly with government backing. After his initial appeals to the federal government were rejected, Reynolds turned to his political connections as a southern Democrat to secure the backing of Senator Lister Hill of Alabama. At Hill's urging, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation agreed to loan Reynolds $15.8 million in return for a mortgage on the eighteen plants he owned. Reynolds employed that initial line of credit to build a smelter and mill in Sheffield, Alabama, and additional facilities in the state of Washington. Even with government-sponsored financing, the new venture represented considerable risk for Reynolds. The company had to integrate backward from consumer products into primary aluminum manufacturing and bauxite mining, areas where its employees had little experience. Furthermore, Alcoa responded to Reynolds's entrance into production with a price war. In turn, Reynolds continued to build additional capacity and survived the challenge. But he would be unable to compete seriously with Alcoa until the United States entered World War II. Both defense contracts and subsequent policies of the federal government created an exceptional opportunity for him. While the entry of Reynolds Metals into aluminum production dramatically increased domestic output, plants controlled by the federal government accounted for half of U.S. aluminum production by the end of the war. The restoration of peace raised the question of what to do with the government-owned factories in light of the drastic reduction in demand. Most experts suggested closing or dismantling the federally owned facilities. Reynolds, however, argued in favor of selling the plants to private interests, asserting that the excess capacity would be absorbed in less than five years. Reynolds's suggestion elicited a positive response within the government, where antitrust sentiment was running high. Specifically, in March 1945 a federal court decision declared Alcoa a monopoly-a finding that effectively prohibited it from acquiring any of the government plants. Alcoa strenuously resisted government plans to sell those factories that Alcoa itself had built and operated on behalf of the federal government, particularly the large refinery at Hurricane Creek, Arkansas, that used Alcoa's new "combination process," allowing the processing of low-grade bauxite ore. Under government pressure Alcoa relented, and Reynolds secured control of the refinery and use of the new process, which would allow him to compete effectively with Alcoa. Reynolds eventually acquired a total of six plants from the government for $57 million, about one-third of their original construction cost. In order to feed this vastly increased production capacity, Reynolds Metals acquired bauxite deposits in Jamaica and Haiti. In the postwar boom economy, Reynolds's gamble that rising demand would soon absorb the production capacities created during the war paid off. But his success was not due solely to the general rebound of the national economy. His company had launched an intense consumer advertising campaign designed to convince the American public of the usefulness of aluminum in their daily lives. In the postwar years, Reynolds Metals generated a dizzying array of aluminum consumer products that ranged from sports equipment to home appliances. Its flagship product in this effort was aluminum foil, sold under the brand name Reynolds Wrap. Thanks in part to Reynolds's aggressive merchandising efforts, aluminum also gained wide acceptance for industrial uses ranging from building construction to automobile manufacture. That strategy helped establish Reynolds Metals as the second largest producer of aluminum in the United States. Once again, Richard Reynolds had successfully challenged a monopoly. In 1948 Reynolds had stepped down as president of the Reynolds company to assume the post of chair of the board. He was replaced by his son Richard S. Reynolds, Jr., while his other three sons also held important management positions in the company. By the time of Reynolds's death in Richmond, Virginia, he was already recognized as a corporate pioneer who blended product innovation, astute consumer advertising, and risk taking to successfully challenge monopolistic enterprises. American National Biography – 2005

  
  

• Sources

  [S71] Hoge, Family of, James Hoge Tyler (compiler), (Greensboro, North Carolina: James Fulton Hoge, editor & publisher, 1927), page 80 (Reliability: 4). [S102] American National Biography, by the American Council of Learned Societies and Oxford University Press, (American Council of Learned Societies and Oxford University Press, 2005), Reynolds, Richard Samuel, Sr. (Reliability: 4). Written by Thomas F. O'Brien [S103] Rennolds, Reynolds family of England and Virginia, Stephen F. Tillman, (Washington, D. C.: unknown, 1948, 263 pages), page 117 (Reliability: 3). [S106] Inventor of the Week, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001), http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/reynolds.html (Reliability: 4). [S226] Who Was Who - Vol. III (1954-1960), Marquis - Who's Who, Incorporated, (Saint Louis, Missouri: The Von Hoffman Press, 1960), page 721 (Reliability: 4). [S214] Who Was Who - Vol. VII (1977-1981), The A. N. Marquis Company, (Chicago, Illinois: Marquis Who's Who, 1981), ISBN 0-8379-0210-X., page 478 (Reliability: 4). [S367] Stray Leaves, Eric James, (1997-2007), Richard Samuel Reynolds, Senior (Reliability: 3). [S486] Listen to the Mockingbird, Daniel Dunbar Howe, (Boyce, Virginia: Carr publishing Company, Inc., 1961), page 327 (Reliability: 4).