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Historical records matching Isaac Leopold Rice
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About Isaac Leopold Rice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Rice
Isaac Leopold Rice (February 22, 1850 – November 2, 1915) was a German American businessman, musicologist, and chess patron and writer. In 1899 he founded the Electric Boat Company, which produced submarines for the U.S. and British navies and continues today as General Dynamics Electric Boat.
Isaac Rice was born in Bavaria, Germany, but emigrated to the United States as a child. He grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from Columbia University in 1880. Rice worked for Columbia University as a lecturer and and instructor until 1886, when he began the practice of railroad law.
Rice developed an interest in electricity and avidly promoted its use. In 1888, he formed the Electric Storage Battery Company based on Clement Payen’s "chloride accumulator." A short time later, he formed the Electric Vehicle Company which operated electric powered taxi cabs. He acquired control of the Electric Launch Company (later Elco); and upon the death of the president of The Electro-Dynamic Company, the former employers of Frank T. Cable, that enterprise also came under Rice’s management."2 When the Holland Torpedo Boat Company ran short of funds, Frank Cable approached Isaac Rice for help. After visiting the Holland VI twice in 1898, Rice agreed to fund the modifications made in early 1899. "On 7 February [1899], the Electric Boat Company was incorporated and the Holland Company became its major subsidiary. Certain privileged holders of Holland stock converted their assets into preferred shares of Electric Boat. Isaac Rice became president of both companies, John Holland was retained as manager, Charles Morris retained as superintending engineer, and Charles Creecy still represented the Holland interests in Washington as legal counsel. E. B. Frost, secretary-treasurer, emerged as the real overlord of the submarine enterprise. The Electric Boat Company soon absorbed, into one vast combine, The Electro-Dynamic Company of Philadelphia and the Electric Launch Company, among other Rice enterprises."3 Rice also organized the Car Lighting and Power Company and the American Casein Company. He was active in the organiztion of the Industrial Oxygen Company, the New Jersey Development Company, the Societe Francaise de Sousmarin, the International Development Company, the national Torpedo Comapny, the Consolidated Railway Electric Lighting and Equipment Company, Railway Stationary and Refrigerating Company, the Lindstrom Brake Company and the National Milk Sugar Company. Isaac Rice was an accomplished chess player and inventor of the "Rice Gambit." He was married to Julia Hyneman Barnett and had six children.4
Newspaper Obituary, November 3, 1915 provided by Victor du Busc. Morris, Richard K., John P. Holland: Inventor of the Modern Submarine. (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1966; 2nd ed., Univ. S.C. Press, 1998), pg 92. Ibid., pg 96. Newspaper Obituary, November 3, 1915 provided by Victor du Busc.
Ó1999,2001,2002 Gary McCue
Gary W. McCue gwmccue@aol.com 17 November 2002 http://www.geocities.com/gwmccue
From the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906:
American lawyer, author, and chess-player; born Feb. 22, 1850, at Wachenheim in the Rhenish Palatinate. When six years of age he was taken by his mother to the United States. Rice was educated at the Central High School in Philadelphia, and from 1866 to 1869 studied literature and music in Paris. While there he acted as correspondent for the Philadelphia "Evening Bulletin." On his return to America he settled in New York, where he acquired considerable fame as a music teacher. In 1880 he graduated (LL.B.) from the law school of Columbia College. Later, at the same college, he became lecturer in the school of political science (1882-83) and instructor in the law school (1885-86). He practised law until 1889.
From 1884 to 1893 Rice was active in railway matters, either as counsel or as director, and for a time was foreign representative in London of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. In 1885 he founded the "Forum" magazine, becoming the first president of the Forum Publishing Company, which position he still (1905) occupies. In 1893 he interested himself in electrical matters and became connected with the Electric Storage Battery Company, of which, in 1897, he was chosen president. Rice was also the founder of the electric-automobile and electric-boat (including the submarine boat) industries in America; and he organized on a large scale the casein business of the United States. In 1902 Bates College conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D.
Rice is a prominent figure in the American chess world. He has been president of the Manhattan Chess Club, and has presented for competition several trophies, including the one that is competed for annually by cable by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, representing England, and those of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, in the United States. In 1895 he discovered a variation of the Kieseritzky gambit, which has been named the "Rice Gambit" (see Jew. Encyc. iv. 20b, s.v. Chess).
The books published by Rice include: "What Is Music?" (New York, 1875), which was supplemented by "How the Geometrical Lines Have Their Counterparts in Music" (ib. 1880). The latter work was subsequently made part of the "Humboldt Libraryof Science." He has also contributed a large number of articles to the "Century," "Forum," and "North American Review."
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Isaac Leopold Rice's Timeline
| 1850 |
February 22, 1850
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Wachenheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
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| 1890 |
August 13, 1890
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1915 |
November 2, 1915
Age 65
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New York, New York, United States
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