1. Lewis Rodman Wanamaker was an American businessman and heir to the Wanamaker's department store fortune.
27 Facts About Rodman Wanamaker
1. 2.
In 1916, Wanamaker originated the proposal for the Professional Golfers' Association of America.
3.
Rodman Wanamaker was born on February 13,1863, in Philadelphia, to John Rodman Wanamaker and Mary Erringer Brown.
4.
Rodman Wanamaker entered Princeton University in 1881, graduating in 1886.
5.
Rodman Wanamaker was a member of the Ivy Club, Princeton University's first eating club.
6.
Rodman Wanamaker was a member of the 1885 Princeton Tigers football team that won the national championship with a dramatic last-minute punt return over the Yale Bulldogs.
7.
Rodman Wanamaker married Fernanda Henry of Philadelphia and went to Paris as resident manager in 1889, where he lived for more than ten years.
8.
Rodman Wanamaker was content to live in his father's shadow and did not actively seek the limelight except for some official, largely ceremonial positions he held in New York City toward the end of his life.
9.
Rodman Wanamaker suffered from kidney disease in the last decade of his life, and the toxins from this condition slowly took their toll on his health.
10.
Rodman Wanamaker had a son, Captain John Wanamaker, and two daughters.
11.
Rodman Wanamaker died on March 9,1928, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
12.
Rodman Wanamaker was interred in the Wanamaker family tomb in Church of St James the Less in Philadelphia.
13.
Rodman Wanamaker sponsored elaborate recitals in the Grand Court of the Philadelphia store, often featuring Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
14.
Rodman Wanamaker sponsored a Concert Bureau to book European organists on trans-American concert tours.
15.
Toward the end of his life, Rodman Wanamaker gathered a huge collection of stringed instruments, known as The Cappella, that featured violins and violas from such masters as Guarnerius and Stradivarius.
16.
Rodman Wanamaker was a pioneer in sponsoring record-breaking aviation projects and in particular and especially an important early backer of transatlantic flight development.
17.
Shortly before the American entry into World War I in 1917, Rodman Wanamaker donated a Model H to the US government for use in the defense of New York.
18.
Rodman Wanamaker was a patron of many important commissions in the field of liturgical arts, and his legacy includes a sterling silver altar and silver pulpit at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, the church of the King's Sandringham House estate in Norfolk, England, as well as a massive processional cross for Westminster Abbey, known as the 'Wanamaker Cross of Westminster'.
19.
Rodman Wanamaker made important additions to his Philadelphia parish of St Mark's Church, notably the sumptuously appointed Lady Chapel, which was a memorial to his first wife, Fernanda.
20.
Rodman Wanamaker commissioned architect John T Windrim to design a free-standing bell tower for the Church of St James the Less in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Allegheny West.
21.
Between 1908 and 1913, Rodman Wanamaker sponsored three photographic expeditions to the American Indians intended to document a vanishing way of life and make the Indian first-class citizens to save them from extinction.
22.
In 1909, Rodman Wanamaker conceived the idea of a national monument to Native Americans.
23.
Rodman Wanamaker developed the project for a Statue of Liberty-like colossal statue, and sponsored the 1913 groundbreaking for a National Memorial to the First Americans on Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor.
24.
On January 17,1916, Wanamaker invited a group of 35 prominent golfers and other leading industry representatives, including the legendary Walter Hagen, and the "Father of American Golf" Alexander A Findlay to a luncheon at the Taplow Club in New York for an exploratory meeting, which resulted in the formation of the Professional Golfers' Association of America.
25.
Rodman Wanamaker's offer was accepted, and seven months later, the first PGA Championship was played at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York.
26.
Rodman Wanamaker accepted an appointment during World War I as Special Deputy Police Commissioner in New York City, greeting distinguished guests from around the world and helping organize the victory parade for General John J Pershing and the returning doughboys.
27.
Rodman Wanamaker owned a townhouse on Spruce Street in Philadelphia, a New York residence on Washington Square, a house in Atlantic City, and a country home near his father's estate in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.