William Jay Schieffelin
William Jay Schieffelin ( New York City, April 14, 1866 – April 29, 1955), was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Early life
William Jay Schieffelin was the first son of William Henry Schieffelin and Mary Jay Schieffelin.
William’s mother was the daughter of John Jay, who was the grandson of John Jay. His paternal ancestors were Jacob Schieffelin and Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin.
Personal life
William Jay Schieffelin married Maria Louise Shepard, eldest daughter of Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard and Elliott Fitch Shepard, in 1891. The wedding of Maria Louise and William was a highly social event and reflected the splendor of the Gilded Age. The wedding took place at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and in the grand picture gallery of William Vanderbilt’s double villa at Fifth Avenue.
The couple had nine children: William Jay, Margaret Louisa, Mary Jay, John Jay, Louise, Bayard, Elliott, Barbara, and Henry.
The family lived on 5 East 66th Street (the building is owned by the Lotos Club since 1947) and moved to 620 Park Avenue in 1925. They also had an estate on Schieffelin Point peninsula in Maine.
Military service
During the Spanish-American War in 1898, William Jay Schieffelin served as a volunteer captain and regimental adjutant of the 12th Regiment of the National Guard.
In World War I, he was Colonel of the 369th Infantry. The 15th Regiment was a colored unit. These first African American and Afro-Puerto Rican units had white officers. They served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
Career
William Jay Schieffelin attended Trinity School in Manhattan.
He received further education at the Columbia School of Mines, where he graduated as Ph.B. and member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1887. At Columbia he studied chemistry under Professor Charles F. Chandler.
He then studied for two years at the University of Munich with Professor von Baeyer and received his Ph.D. in chemistry cum laude in 1889.
Schieffelin & Co
Back in Manhattan, William Jay Schieffelin had been a partner in Schieffelin & Co since 1890, its vice president since 1903, its president 1906–1923 and its chairman of board 1923–1929. He managed Schieffelin & Co in the 5th generation after Jacob Schieffelin (1757–1835), who founded the company in 1794 (then Lawrence & Schieffelin, Pharma-Trade, at 195 Pearl Street in Manhattan). Schieffelin & Co was America's longest-running pharmaceutical business.
In 1889, William Jay Schieffelin began work in the analytical department of Schieffelin & Co and the company's laboratory, which was on Front Street in Manhattan. His routine work was assaying opium and coca leaves and standardizing concentrated Ethyl nitrite. At that time cocaine was in large demand for local anesthesia, and Schieffelin & Co imported large quantities of coca leaves from Bolivia and Peru, and became the leading manufacturers of the hydrochloride.
Committee work and social commitment
William Jay Schieffelin's social commitment extended to many associations and institutions:
- President of the National Wholesale Druggists Association (1910)
- Vice President of the American Pharmaceutical Association
- Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health
- Officer for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice
- Vestryman in St. George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square
- Manager of the American Bible Society
- President of the American Leprosy Missions (1941)
- Sponsor of the Schieffelin Institute of Health - Research & Leprosy Center in Karigiri, India
- President of the Huguenot Society of America (1922–1947)
- Member of the NAACP
- Board of Trustees of the Hampton Institute
- Board of Trustees of Tuskegee
- President of the Armstrong Association
- Chairman of the Defense Committee for the Scottsboro Boys
- Colonel of the 396th Harlem Regiment
- President of the Citizens Union (1908–1941)
- Civil Service Commissioner
- President of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage
- Chairman of the Christian Committee to Boycott Nazi Germany (1941)
- Fellow of the London Chemical Society
- Member of the American Chemical Society
- Member of the Society of Chemical Industry
- Member of the Century Association (1894–1955)
Drug Act of 1906
In 1906, Congress formed a committee to clarify why the United States had a problem with addictive substances in pharmaceutical products, and how this problem could be avoided. William Jay Schieffelin was summoned as an expert before Congress to contribute to the clarification. The statements of William Jay Schieffelin and other experts led to a tightening of drug laws in the USA. The Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted by Congress in 1906.
Death
William Jay Schieffelin died on April 29, 1955, six years after his wife Maria Louise.