Thomas Mellon and His Times (Calvin Centre): Thomas Mellon
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Although his sons, particularly Andrew Mellon, are better known to the general public, it was Thomas Mellon who laid the basis for one of the great fortunes of the early-twentieth-century U.S. He was born in 1813 in Ireland’s Ulster province and immigrated with his family to America at the age of five. When he was 17, he rejected his father’s plans to set him up as a yeoman farmer and launched his own plans, which led to his brilliant career as a jurist, banker, and businessman. In 1885 Mellon published his autobiography, primarily for the benefit of his progeny rather than for the general public. Until this reissuance by the University of Pittsburgh Press, the complete text was not readily available. Mellon lived through the massive territorial and economic expansion of America, as well as the Civil War, and yet provides few insights into the great events that swirled around him. In his personal observations, he often comes across as a poster boy for the politically incorrect: Indians are lazy and untrustworthy, and the poor deserve their poverty because they won’t work to escape it. However, as a memoir of one man’s personal journey from the Old World to the New and from an agrarian to an industrial society, Mellon’s story is compelling, often surprisingly touching, and a valuable piece of Americana. Jay Freeman
From Kirkus Reviews
A vastly engrossing 19th-century rags-to-riches autobiography by the somewhat priggish, but shrewd and observant, founder of the Mellon family fortune. Thomas Mellon (18131908) wrote this 1885 memoir solely as a “memento of affection” for his descendants, anticipating “that it will not be for sale in bookstores, nor any new edition published.” Mellon was born in Ireland to farmers of modest means who emigrated to Poverty Point, near Pittsburgh, when he was five years old. He recounts a happy, if Spartan, upbringing there on his father’s farm. A visit to Pittsburgh impressed the nine-year-old Mellon with the magnificence of the city, and at the age of 17, deciding against farming in favor of getting an education, Mellon suddenly stopped his father from purchasing a farm for him. Interspersing college attendance with teaching and farm chores, Mellon attended Western University in Pittsburgh, read law with a prominent Pittsburgh attorney, and became a member of the bar in 1838. He married in 1843 and had eight children; became an eminent lawyer and judge and a successful investor; and founded a predecessor of the Mellon Bank in 1870. Mellon’s narrative of his happy family life and prominent, though not terribly eventful, career forms the backdrop for a wide variety of opinions and observations, sage and otherwise: on the importance of marrying for discretion rather than love; on the heavy responsibilities of a judge; on the Great Panic of 1873; on the declining work ethic and increased crime rate Mellon saw around him in newly industrialized America; and on the (not always positive) transformative effects of new inventions created in his lifetime. A charming memoir with some surprisingly meditative reflections, by an entrepreneurial leader of the time, on the bewildering changes wrought by 19th-century industrialism. (Photos and maps) — Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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