Rufus Cutler Dawes

Rufus Cutler Dawes

• Rufus C. Dawes' Wikipedia Page
• Find A Grave Memorial ID # 31643123

Dawes was an American businessman from a prominent Ohio family.

Dawes was born in Marietta, Ohio, to American Civil War Brigadier General Rufus R. Dawes and Mary Beman (Gates) Dawes. He was a younger brother of Charles G. Dawes and great-great-grandson of Revolutionary War figure William Dawes. Two other brothers were also nationally known - Beman Gates Dawes and Henry May Dawes. His middle name, Cutler, was named in honor of one of his father's Civil War colleagues in the Iron Brigade, Lysander Cutler.

Dawes graduated from Marietta College with an A.B. in 1886 and A.M. in 1889. He married Helen B. Palmer on June 3, 1893. He was active in many gas and lighting utilities, becoming president of the Union Gas & Electric Company, Metropolitan Gas & Electric Company, and Dawes Brothers, Inc.

He became involved in public service in 1918, serving on the Illinois State Pension Laws Commission (1918-1919). In 1920, he was selected as a delegate to the Illinois constitutional convention. He was asked by his brother Charles to serve on the experts commission preparing the Dawes Plan in 1924. Because of this work, Dawes was again asked to work on the reparations problem, this time as assistant to Owen D. Young (see the Young Plan).

Dawes was a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and, in fact, served as president of the Club in 1925-26. He was president of A Century of Progress Corporation from 1927 until his death in 1940. From 1934 until his death, Dawes was concurrently president of the world's fair organization and the Museum of Science & Industry. Dawes was the third president of MSI after Sewell Avery and William Rufus Abbott. Previously, he had been an active member of the Board of Trustees, helping to brief once and future New York Times science editor Waldemar Kaempffert when the latter became the first Executive Director of the Museum of Science & Industry in 1928.

During World War II, the United States Navy commissioned a Liberty Ship, the SS Rufus C. Dawes, in 1943. It was scrapped in 1968.
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Children:

William Miles Dawes 1895-1984
Charles Cutler Dawes 1899-1971
Jean Dawes Sherman 1901-1981
Palmer Dawes 1905-1967
Margaret Dawes Jefferson 1908-1997
Helen Dawes Watermulder 1911-

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Rufus C. Dawes Chicago Fair Chief, Is Dead

Brother of Former Vice-President Proud That He Made It Pay

CHICAGO, Ill. Jan. 8 (AP) – Rufus C. Dawes, 72, who guided the Chicago World's Fair through successful seasons in 1933 and 1934 and proudly wrote its financial history in black ink, died Monday of a heart attack.

Known as a utilities executive, civic leader and member of a family famed in business, banking and politics, he attracted most attention as president of a Century of Progress Exposition which drew nearly 40,000 persons to the lake front grounds while the city and nation were emerging from the depression.

He was proud of the fact that the venture showed a profit and because, as he put, the first world's fair which did not finish in the red.

The funeral will be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday at the First Presbyterian Church of suburban Evanston. Burial will be Thursday at Marietta, Ohio, where Dawes was born, July 30 1867.

Rufus and his brothers, General Charles Gates Dawes, former Vice President of the United States; Henry and Berman; were the sons of General Rufus Robinson Dawes, who commanded the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment in the War Between the States.

Rufus graduated from Marietta College in 1886, was associated with his father in the lumber business for eleven years and then went to Evanston to become president of the Northwestern Gas, Light and Code Company. The four brothers had extensive utility holdings from then until 1929. Rufus served as president of the Union Gas & Electric Company, the Metropolitan Gas & Electric Company and Dawes Brothers, Inc. Eventually he purchased and managed fifty-two subdivisions.

When Charles Dawes was chosen to serve the German reparations problem after the World War, Rufus was drafted as economic advisor to American members of the committee of experts which evolved the Dawes plan.

Surviving are the three brothers, the wife, the former Helen Palmer of Washington Court House, Ohio; three sons, Charles C. William and Palmer, and three daughters, Mrs. Robert T. Sherman, Mrs. Beverly Jefferson and Mrs. Louis Watermulder.

The Dallas Morning News
Tuesday, January 9, 1940
Dallas, Texas, United States