Owen D. Young
Owen D. Young (October 27, 1874 – July 11, 1962) was an American industrialist, businessman, lawyer and diplomat at the Second Reparations Conference (SRC) in 1929, as a member of the German Reparations International Commission.[1]
Owen Young
October 27, 1874
July 11, 1962 (aged 87)
He is known for the plan to settle Germany's World War I reparations, known as the Young Plan and for the creation of the Radio Corporation of America. Young founded RCA as a subsidiary of General Electric in 1919; he became its first chairman and continued in that position until 1929. RCA was divested in 1932 and liquidated by GE in 1986.
Education[edit]
East Springfield Academy was a small coeducational school and Young greatly enjoyed his time there,[5] making lifelong friends; later in life, he tried to attend all of the reunions. St. Lawrence was a small institute struggling to survive and in serious need of both money and students and Owen Young was a good candidate. It was still expensive enough to cause some hesitance, however. With his father getting on in years, Owen was needed on the farm more than ever. His parents were eventually convinced by the president of the college.
It was there that Young was able to grow as a person in both his education and his faith. He discovered Universalism, which allowed for more intellectual freedom, separate from the gloom and hellfire permeating other Christian sects. Young remained a student from September 1890 before becoming an 1894 graduate of St. Lawrence University, on June 27. He completed the three-year law course at Boston University in two years, graduating cum laude in 1896.
After graduation he joined lawyer Charles H. Tyler and ten years later became a partner in that Boston law firm. They were involved in litigation cases between major companies. During college, he not only became a brother of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, but he also met his future wife Josephine Sheldon Edmonds, an 1886 Radcliffe graduate. He married her in 1898, and she eventually bore him five children.
Legacy[edit]
More than 20 colleges awarded him honorary degrees. He was an elected Member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9][10] Long interested in education, he was a member of the New York State Board of Regents, governing body of New York's educational system, until 1946. Then, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey called upon him to head the state commission that laid the groundwork for the State University of New York system. Although the commission represented a wide range of views and opinions, Young achieved a surprising unanimity that resulted in a report containing recommendations adopted by the legislature. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame in 2019.