Axel Leonard Wenner-Gren

Entrepreneur. Axel Leonard Wenner-Gren received worldwide recognition as a Swedish industrialist and financier, who, in the early 20th Century, had the foresight of using door-to-door marketing techniques to peddle his home vacuum cleaners, the Electrolux. The company was first incorporated in 1919, more than a decade after his first encounter with the vacuum cleaner, and the company was incorporated in the United States in 1921. His Electrolux Corporation rapidly expanded into a multimillion-dollar enterprise by 1925. Born in a middle-class home, many sources claim his saga was a "rags to riches" story. Yet, the Wennergren family is documented in the late 17th century as owning a large farm, having businesses within the city, and serving in political offices. He was one of six children, but an older set of twin sisters and the youngest sister died while he was still a boy at home. After finishing local schooling, he began to work for an uncle in his spice import business for five years. During this time, he attended night school, learning German, English, French, and other skills that would serve him well in his business career. In 1902, he left for Germany to attend universities, where he began to learn the importance of research. He began to become involved with farm machinery. In 1908, he traveled to the United States to learn about farm machinery engines and, at the same time, became involved in the invention of a vacuum cleaner in Sweden. After his profitable success in vacuum cleaners, he expanded with lighting and refrigeration and later the ownership of newspapers, banks, book match factories, railroads, computers, and arms manufacturers, to name a few. He had the vision of world marketing a product. In 1909, he married Marguerite Gauntier Liggett, an American whose sister, Gene Gauntier, was a star in the silent film industry. While on a transatlantic ocean liner from the United States to England, he met his wife, who was traveling to Europe to study opera. When the ship docked, they were married. She did have a short operatic career after their marriage. The couple had no children. His politics were complicated and became world news. In March of 1936, he and his wife were the private weekend guests of United States Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House. In 1937 he published his book, "A Call to Reason." Knowing a second world war was coming, he tried to be a mediator. After meetings with former United States Herbert Hoover, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Nazi Field Marshall Hermann Göring and a host of South American leaders, he was placed on January 14, 1942, with only circumstantial evidence, on the United States Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals. His monetary assets were frozen in the United States and England. He stayed the majority of the war in Mexico, the Bahamas, or his yacht, the "Southern Cross."
On the sinking of the SS Athenia, a British transatlantic ocean liner, by a Nazi submarine on September 3, 1939, the first day of World War II, the "Southern Cross" rescued over three hundred survivors, transferring some to nearby Allied ships or taking them to the United States. As a gift to his wife, he purchased in the 1930s from millionaire Torsten Kreuger the beautifully remodeled Häringe Castle. He and members of his family are buried on the grounds. A chained-off boulder marks the burial sites. This was only one of a few mansions that he owned. After his 1961 death, there was mishandling of funds of his estate, and members of his most trusted colleagues were indicted for fraud, but only one was found guilty. Yet, millions of dollars of his estate were missing, including his wife's jewelry and the contents of Häringe Castle. In 1941, he started the endowment of The Viking Fund, whose name was later changed in 1951 to The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc., which promotes education. The Wenner-Gren Lab at the University of Kentucky was a gift of the Wenner-Gren Foundation. In the early days, aeronautical research was the subject addressed by this laboratory. Still, lately, artificial joints and other physiology concerns have been researched as part of the biomedical engineering program.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Feb 28 2024, 7:32:33 UTC