\"Industrialist\" Myron Taylor Signed TLS Dated 1954 For Sale

Up for sale "Industrialist" Myron Taylor Hand Signed TLS Dated 1954.

ES-4659

Myron

Charles Taylor (January

18, 1874 – May 5, 1959) was an American industrialist,

and later a diplomat involved in many of the most important geopolitical events during and after World War II. In

addition he was a philanthropist, giving to his alma mater, Cornell University, and a

number of other causes. Taylor was born in Lyons, New York, to William Delling Taylor and Mary (née Underhill)

Taylor. His father owned and operated a tannery business. Taylor graduated from the Cornell Law School of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1894. He returned to Lyons and for the

next five years attempted to establish a small-town law practice. He also twice

ran for the New York State Assembly as

a Democrat, and

both times was defeated. In 1900, Taylor left Lyons to join his brother Willard

Underhill Taylor (Cornell, A.B., class of 1891) on Wall Street in New York City, New York. His focus turned to corporate law, practicing at the firm of DeForest Brothers

& DeForest. Taylor handled litigation for his father's tannery and

subsequently won a U.S.

government contract for mail pouches and related products. He moved into the

textile and mail delivery business and, according to the Finger Lakes

Times, invented the transparent "window" in envelopes through which an address is displayed. Taylor's

efforts in the textile industry expanded to the cotton markets, identifying opportunities to acquire

struggling cotton mills, reworking

labor practices and updating the technology they used. This approach later

became known as the the potential of the infant automotive industry, he

established a textile firm that became the leading

supplier of combined

tire fabric. During World War I his plants became the leading suppliers to

the American military effort.

Following the war he saw a boom-bust cycle coming and disposed of all his interests

in the mills. With his now-sizable fortune he could have retired, but at the

urging of two leading Wall Street bankers (J. P. Morgan, Jr. and George F. Baker), Taylor

was recruited to help turn around the finances of U.S. Steel. It was once the

largest steel producer and largest corporation in the world.[ On September

15, 1925, he was elected a director and member of its powerful finance committee. He became the committee's chairman in 1929. From March 29, 1932, until April 5,

1938, he was U.S. Steel's chairman and chief executive officer. During

the desperate years of the Great Depression, he applied the Taylor Formula again—closing

or selling plants; reorganizing the corporate structure; and upgrading and

modernizing the company's operations and technology. One defining moment

occurred in 1937, when Taylor struck a deal with labor leader John L. Lewis who, at the time, was head of the Congress of

Industrial Organizations (CIO). Through the deal, U.S. Steel

agreed to recognize a CIO subsidiary for purposes of representing and

organizing U.S. Steel workers. U.S. Steel became the first major industrial

corporation to take this historic step. The basis for the deal later became

known as the Myron Taylor Labor Formula, defining how to bring about labor

stability and long-term prosperity for the company: The Company recognizes the

right of its employees to bargain collectively through representatives freely

chosen by them without dictation, coercion or intimidation in any form or from

any source. It will negotiate and contract with the representatives of any

group of its employees so chosen and with any organization as the

representative of its members, subject to the recognition of the principle that

the right to work is not dependent on membership or non-membership in any

organization and subject to the right of every employee freely to bargain in

such manner and through such representatives, if any, as he chooses Taylor soon

was featured on the covers of or in articles in Time, Fortune, Business Week, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post.

He did not officially retire from the board until January 12, 1956.[ U.S. Steel named one of its

new lake freighters the Myron

C. Taylor in 1929. It sailed under this name until it was sold off in

2000.