biography
| name: |
Inman, John Hamilton
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1844–96)
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| biography:
| and Samuel Martin Inman (1843–1915), financiers, merchants, and brothers, both born in Jefferson Co, Tennessee, USA. Their father's plantation business was ruined by the Civil War, in which each brother fought with the Confederate army. Samuel opened a cotton commission office with his father in Atlanta, GA (1867) which (named S M Inman & Co after his father returned to Tennessee in 1870) became one of the largest cotton dealers in the world. His brother John worked in a bank before going to a New York City cotton house at which he became partner. In 1870 he organized Inman, Swann & Co, and was one of the organizers of the New York Cotton Exchange, soon so influential that he was called the ‘Cotton King’. With his fortune and influence, John began redeveloping the South, discovering mineral deposits and promoting railway building and further industrialization. He was one of the directors and organizer of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co, later absorbed by US Steel. With his brother he helped organize the Southern Railway System that incorporated many of the interterritorial railways in the South in the 1880s. In Atlanta, Samuel was treasurer of the International Cotton Exposition (1881), and an organizer of the Cotton States and International Exposition there (1895). He was a supporter of the Georgia Institution of Technology and Oglethorpe and Emory Universities, and John was a director on several banks and insurance companies. |
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