George Eastman
United States
Date of Birth: 1854 — 1932
George Eastman was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company. His invention of the Kodak camera, a name he coined, was a major reason for making photography accessible to the public.
In 1878, when he was 24, he bought a photographic outfit with all the paraphernalia of the...
George Guess, aka Sequoyah
United States
Date of Birth: 1767 — 1843
Sequoyah (Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or Se-quo-ya, as is often spelled in Cherokee; named in English George Gist or George Guess) (c.1770-1843), was an American and Cherokee polymath. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in...
George Wickes
Garrard & Co.
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1735
Originally founded in 1735 by royal silversmith George Wickes, the firm was eventually taken over by Robert Garrard in partnership with John Wakelin in 1792. Garrard had many aristocratic patrons and was represented at numerous international exhibitions including the Great Exhibition of 1851....
George & Henry Richards
Elkington Kingston & Co.
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1830
Brothers George Richards and Henry started G. R. Elkington & Co in the 1830s. The firm then operated independently as Elkington & Co. for over 100 years. In 1840 Elkington & Co. patented the electrolytic process for silver plating that is still in use today and they expanded at an incredible...
George Adams
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1840 — 1883
William Chawner II's son-in-law who took over Chawner & Co. with his mother-in-law Mary Chawner. He took over the firm and registered his first mark in 1840. He was an exhibitor at the 1851 Great Exhibition and the company became one of the largest producers of quality silver flatware in...
Georg Jensen
Denmark
Date of Birth: 1866 — 1935
Born in 1866, Jensen was the son of a knife grinder in the town of Raadvad just to the north of Copenhagen. Jensen began his training in goldsmithing at the age of 14 in Copenhagen. His apprenticeship with the firm Guldsmed Andersen, ended in 1884, and this freed Georg to follow his artistic...
Giovanni Battista Serpieri
Italy
Date of Birth: 1832 — 1897
Giovanni Battista Serpieri was the first foreign "mega-entrepreneur" to invest in Greece. He was demonized almost immediately after he had invested fifteen million drachmas to gain the concession to re-open the Lavrion Mines, the same mines that had made ancient Athens an economic powerhouse....
George Hearst
United States
Date of Birth: 1820 — 1891
George Hearst, of Scots-Irish origin, was born near present-day Sullivan, Missouri, to William G. Hearst and Elizabeth Collins. Hearst was raised in a log cabin on his family's farm in rural Franklin County. His father operated three small farms, all of which were mortgaged, with slave labor....