Video: Nathan Strauss is a man who sacrificed his fortune to save half a million children
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The name Nathan Strauss is considered synonymous with kindness, selflessness and philanthropy. A fairly wealthy man, he spent most of his fortune saving more than half a million children's lives. His favorite expression was:.
The future businessman and philanthropist was born in Germany in 1848. After 6 years, his family moved to the United States. My father opened a crockery shop there. As Nathan Strauss and his brothers grew up, they began to develop the family business and all achieved financial success.
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. New York City experienced an incredibly high mortality rate among young children. Poor quality milk was one of the main reasons for this trend. Children through it became infected from infected cows with tuberculosis, typhus, diphtheria, scarlet fever. In the family of Nathan Strauss, a similar grief happened: a newborn daughter died from drinking contaminated milk. When a cow later died on his farm (as it turned out later, she had tuberculosis), the merchant realized that there was a direct relationship between these two deaths.
Nathan Strauss was aware of the pasteurization technology created by Louis Pasteur, when liquids had to be heated to a certain temperature in order to destroy dangerous microorganisms. They knew about pasteurization since the end of the 1860s, but ignorant inhabitants considered this procedure harmful, and farmers who were selling milk did not want to spend extra money.
Nathan Strauss decided to invest his own money in the development of pasteurization. Initially, a pasteurization laboratory and a milk warehouse were equipped. For a daily portion of milk, people paid only 5 cents. In fact, this payment was purely symbolic, so that everyone who came would not consider themselves humiliated by the "handouts" of the rich man. Those who were unable to give this money away received free milk coupons from the Salvation Army, which Nathan Strauss himself sent there.
Of course, this enthusiasm did not please the sellers of regular milk. In 1895, a merchant was even tried for spoiling products by alleged pasteurization. Strauss was sentenced to a suspended sentence. This incident did not in any way affect the further activities of Nathan Strauss. At his own expense, he continued to open milk pasteurization stations in all boroughs of New York. Finally, in 1914, the "Compulsory Pasteurization Law" officially came into force. By that time, Nathan Strauss had funded 297 stations in 36 US cities.
The efforts and colossal investments of Nathan Strauss' money did not go unnoticed. If in 1891 in New York every fourth child did not live up to a year, then in 25 years there were only 6 deaths per 1000 children. Scientists have calculated that the businessman and philanthropist has saved the lives of almost half a million children.
It should be noted that Nathan Strauss helped not only children. During the crisis of 1893, the poor could get coal from Strauss (25 pounds for only 5 cents). Those who had no funds at all took coal for free. The merchant also opened a shelter for the poor, where about 64 thousand people could get an overnight stay and a bowl of soup.
Nathan Strauss became practically the first American employer to open free canteens for workers in his enterprise. This happened after he noticed that some workers were starving to take an extra penny home to the family.
Nathan Strauss passed away on January 11, 1931. He was 82 years old. This man spent the lion's share of his fortune helping the poor. He liked to repeat often:.
Nobility was a family trait of the Strauss. Nathan's brother Isidore and his wife were on board the Titanic. When the ship began to sink, the man gave up his place in the boat. Wife Ida also did not want to part with her husband, as a result, the Strauss put the maid Ellen Bird in their place in the boat. So was born unthinkable love story from the sunken "Titanic".
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