Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1847–1907) was an American entrepreneur who founded the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891. He was chosen vice president and afterward its president.
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Havemeyer, who was born in New York City, inherited sugar refining entities and expanded them with assistance from his brother, Theodore Havemeyer. His companies controlled sugar refining of the United States at the time of his death.
After three years (1865–68) of training in the Havemeyer business of sugar refining in the north-west area of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, he became a partner in the firm of Havemeyer and Elder, his study of production and market conditions gaining him controlling influence.
He was president of the Long Island Rail Road from 1875 to 1876; during that time he brought two lawsuits for about a third of a million dollars against his immediate predecessor, Oliver Charlick.[1]
After the formation of the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891, under his direction the capitalization of the corporation was increased from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000, and half of the stock of the Spreckels Sugar Company was acquired, thus giving his company control of the Hawaiian sugar and of the markets west of the Mississippi River. He became president of the American Coffee Company. In 1897 Havemeyer was arrested on a charge of contempt for refusing to answer the questions put to him by a committee of the United States Senate, but he was acquitted. Havemeyer is generally regarded as a nineteenth century robber baron. The manner in which he acquired his fortune ensured that neither he nor his wife would serve as a trustee at New York's Metropolitan Museum, despite their major gifts of works by Édouard Manet, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Gilbert Stuart to the collections. A raid of the docks at the Havemeyer plant in Brooklyn by the U.S. Treasury Department revealed that the scales were not accurate and the firm had significantly underpaid import duties. The resulting public scandal may have contributed to Henry Havemeyer's sudden death. His wife Louisine and daughter Electra sailed for Europe to avoid the resulting public outcry. The family name was greatly tarnished by this incident, which may have encouraged Electra Havemeyer to one day found a museum of her own.
Havemeyer died in 1907 and funeral services were held at his home at 1 East Sixty-Sixth Street officiated by Rev. Dr. R. Heber Newton, an Episcopalian minister. Havemeyer was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery.[2]
Henry Havemeyer's first art purchases was made in Philadelphia where he bought carved ivory figures, Japanese lacquered boxes, silk, brocades, and sword guards. His purchases were impulsive, numerous, and deeply personal.
Henry Havemeyer divorced his first wife Mary Louise Elder and married her niece Louisine Elder in 1883. Both Henry and Lousine had distinct tastes for art collecting that largely complemented each other. Both Henry and Louisine had to be in agreement as to an objects worth for it to enter their now legendary collection. Louisine focused on collecting modern works by European painters, including the then-unappreciated Impressionists. She was most influenced by her close friend Mary Cassatt, who encouraged her to buy works by Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. Louisine would make 33 transatlantic crossings, returning from each major trip with a bounty of great western art.
The Havemeyers had three children:
Although each of the children collected in their own right, Electra Havemeyer Webb collected on the grand scale of her parents and went on to found a museum to showcase her deep and diverse collections. Louisine identified some twenty works as a bequest to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but her children decided to give the Met's curators free rein. By the time they had finished an inventory of the Havemeyer's three-story Fifth Avenue manse 1,967 works would assimilated into the Met's holdings. The Havemeyer collection is represented throughout the galleries, but most notably by the sheer volume of works present in the Impressionist collection. Some choice works from the Havemeyer collection are on view at the Shelburne Museum and the University of Michigan Museum of Art to this day.