Samuel insull biography

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From Hero to Hated: America’s Most Tragic Entrepreneur

This article was first published on the Archbridge Institute website.

Few business leaders or entrepreneurs in American history have done more to enable progress and prosperity than Samuel Insull, a name little known today. Yet eighty years ago, he was one of the most famous people in America and Europe—and one of the most despised. Starting with nothing, the entrepreneurial Insull became one of the most intelligent and skilled entrepreneurs we have studied. He did more to bring electricity to America than any person outside its inventors. Sam Insull put together an energy empire worth billions, only to see it disappear from his grasp in the Great Depression. What happened then is one of the great tragedies of business history. Here is the story of this misunderstood and unsung hero of the electrification of America.

Beginnings

Samuel Insull, the second of five children who lived to adulthood, was born in London on Nov

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Born near London, Samuel Insull learned stenography and landed a job in as the personal secretary of Thomas Edison. Learning the electric lighting business from the ground up, Insull helped establish the manufacturing ledd of what would become the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. In , Insull became the president of the Chicago Edison Company, one of several electric companies in the city. Over the following decade, he mastered the unique economics of the electric utility business and emerged as a national leader of the industry. Proclaiming that “low rates may mean good business,” Insull developed a business strategy that encouraged the use of electricity among all types of energy consumers. This approach made him an innovator in the use of technologies, financial instruments, rate structures, and promotional campaigns to create a mass market for electric light and power. Moreover, he mounted a successful effort to establish a monopoly of

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—Samuel Insull, The World&#;s Greatest Failure

Notorious Chicago

Vancouver Sun and Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc., October 22,

BY ROBERT TALLEY
Staff Writer for the Vancouver Sun and NEA Service.

CHAPTER ONE

CHICAGO, Oct—At the peak of his career, Samuel Insull (November 11, – July 16, ) was master of the most gigantic chain of public utilities ever controlled ay one man.

His hundreds of electric plants, gas plants, water plants, ice plants, street car lines, bus lines and electric railroads dotted the map from Maine to Texas and overflowed into Canada and Mexico.

His varied enterprises operated in thirty-two states, served more than 5, cities, towns and villages, had supplied the public utility needs of approximately 15,, persons.

The combined assets of all his companies was close to $4,,,—which is merely another way of saying four thousand million dollars.

Six hundred thousand persons owned lager in his companies, a half million more had bought his bon