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Large archive of personal and family correspondence consisting of 1,144 letters, 4,183 manuscript and typescript pages, approximately 85 related ephemeral items, 3 account, scrap and notebooks, 4 photographs. Archive of correspondence and personal papers of Richard M. Colgate and Henry Auchincloss Colgate, scions of the Colgate family, founders of the present-day Colgate-Palmolive, global household, and consumer products company. Richard Morse Colgate born 21 March 1854 in New York City was the son of Samuel M. Colgate (1822-1897) son of William Colgate, took over the family soap business after his father?s death in 1857 and reorganized it into Colgate & Company. His son Richard, in time was president of Colgate & Company. The letters detail the lives of the Colgate family then living in Llewelleyn Park, West Orange, New Jersey, their interactions with their friends and neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Edison, and other industrial magnates. The Colgate?s discuss their domestic and social lives, business, politics, social work, philanthropy, travel, and their often-surprising attitudes towards taxation and the progressive policies of Roosevelt. There are a number of letters between the Colgates while Henry was a student at The Hill School and then Yale. Harry Colgate traveled to India, China, and Japan in 1914. The Colgates were interested in the commercial prospects of Asia, especially China. While Henry was abroad World War I broke out. Upon his return to America, he went to work for the family firm and was active in Y.M.C.A war work once America entered the war. The Colgate?s discuss the war and its effects on America, American life, and business. The collection also includes an excellent series of letters written while Colgate was training to become a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps in Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, Baker Field, San Antonio, Texas, and Park Field, Wellington, Tennessee. The letters offer highly detailed descriptions of pilot training and life in the earliest days of U.S. military aviation. Samuel Colgate introduced Cashmere Bouquet, the world?s first milled perfumed soap in 1872. Then in 1873, Colgate introduced its first Colgate Toothpaste, an aromatic toothpaste sold in jars. In 1896, the company sold its first toothpaste in a collapsible tube (which had recently been invented by dentist Washington Sheffield), named Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream. Also in 1896, Colgate hired Martin Ittner and under his direction founded one of the first applied research labs. The manufactory he built in Jersey City developed into one of the largest establishments of its kind in the world and is now part of Colgate-Palmolive. He was also prominent in philanthropic work. For more than 30 years he was trustee of Colgate University, and for many years he was president of the New York Baptist Education Society, president of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and a member of the executive committee of the American Baptist Missionary Union and of the American Tract Society. Conjointly with his brother, James Boorman Colgate, he gave large sums to Colgate University, which in 1890 was named in honor of the Colgate family. His son, Samuel Colgate, Jr. became the first head football coach at the school. Richard Morse Colgate, after graduating Yale in 1877, entered the employment of his father. Before the death of Samuel Colgate, the other brothers had all become employees of the firm, and by the father?s will the soap business was placed in their control. Afterward it was incorporated. Richard Morse Colgate became president of Colgate & Company. Richard Colgate was active in the civic life of Orange, New Jersey. He was active in the work of the North Orange Baptist Church and was a trustee at the time of his death in 1919. He was one of the founders of the Y.MC.A. of the Oranges, and for thirty-four years was a director. Seller Inventory # 030816
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