Sewell Avery

Sewell Lee Avery (November 4, 1874 – October 31, 1960) was an American businessman who achieved early prominence in gypsum mining and became president of the United States Gypsum Company (1905-1936).

At the beginning of the Depression, he was asked by J.P. Morgan & Co. to turn around the failing Montgomery Ward and succeeded in restoring its profitability by making huge changes. In 1936, Fortune magazine said that Avery was "generally held to be the No. 1 Chicago businessman." In the postwar years, however, he failed to take advantage of the demand for durable goods and did not expand Montgomery Ward, costing it prominence in the retail field.

Avery was active in Chicago civil activities, for instance, supporting the Commercial Club's plan for a Museum of Science and Industry and serving as its first president. He was also prominent in social circles, and in 1912 founded the private Lincoln Park Gun Club with Oscar F. Mayer, Philip K. Wrigley, and other prominent Chicagoans.

Sewell Lee Avery was born in Saginaw, Michigan as the son of Ellen Lee and Waldo A. Avery, who were a leading business family of the region, with interests in lumber, banking and mining. His father's family were considered lumber barons. Avery attended public schools in Saginaw and Detroit, and the Michigan Military Academy. He earned a bachelor of laws degree in 1894 from the University of Michigan.

Avery married Hortense Lenore Wisner soon after graduation. They started out in a small flat by the lake when he was taken on at a gypsum plant in Alabaster, Michigan. (His father was an investor in it and helped him get a start.) They had the first bathtub in town.

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