Biographical Sketch America at the turn of the 20th century offered opportunity and solace to the immigrant populations finding their way to a new country. The business success of Louis Blaustein and his son, Jacob Blaustein, achieved that promise, but it is more than their business acumen that distinguishes their American lives. Jacob Blaustein rose to become an important figure in the business world and received many accolades during his lifetime in recognition of his diplomatic and philanthropic successes. In the few personal interviews he allowed, Jacob Blaustein often credited his father as a man “of recognized character.” He always wanted it remembered that his father was the leader. He, the son, played “second fiddle” to his father who played “first violin.” Any narrative of Jacob Blaustein’s life must naturally begin with his father, Louis. Louis Blaustein was born in Lithuania, January 16, 1868 (on a statement to an insurance company, he listed the village as Pikelin, Russia). He was the son of Hyman and Sarah (Sachs) Blaustein. He came to the United States alone, arriving in New York in 1884. His first job was in a tannery in Philadelphia, but after a short time he began calling on farmers in eastern Pennsylvania to sell merchandise to them. Shortly after, he opened a small merchandising business in Downingtown, PA. In 1891, he settled in Baltimore and started a small wholesale grocery business where he was successful in the sale of coal oil (kerosene). Another happy result of the move to Baltimore was Louis’s marriage to the former Henrietta Gittelsohn. They were to become parents of three children, Jacob Blaustein (b. 1892), Fannie (b. 1895), and Ruth (b. 1899). In 1891, kerosene was sold from wooden barrels. On hot days, the barrels leaked, and Louis soon thought of using a tin tank with an attached spigot placed on a dray wagon. This is acknowledged to be the first use of the tank wagon. In 1892, Louis accepted a position with the Standard Oil Company (NJ). During the next 18 years with Standard Oil, he learned the oil business from the ground up, but when Standard Oil wanted to send him to Europe to oversee some of its operations there, Louis decided instead to go into the oil business himself. Jacob Blaustein later noted that it was his mother who would not leave the U.S. and wished for her children to be raised here. In 1910, with one tank-wagon and a horse, Louis founded the American Oil Company, and from that modest beginning developed one of America’s major oil companies. At the age of 18, Jacob Blaustein left college at Lehigh to assist his father in founding the business. Father and son rented a yard on the B & O railroad tracks at what was then Clarkson Street in Baltimore city. On the lot was a little stable that housed the horse (and later other horses) and a small warehouse in which a corner formed the original Blaustein office. The Blaustein business was successful from the start. Their success was later attributed to “a policy of honest values, honestly described, honestly sold.” Louis Blaustein opened the first drive-in filling station, invented the first visible gasoline pump, and developed the first anti-knock motor fuel, calling it Amoco. Perhaps it is typical of the immigrant story that the Blaustein family never forgot its responsibility to the country that gave Louis Blaustein his start. The family has given generously of their time and fortune to numerous charitable, educational, and public causes. Jacob Blaustein spent his career in the oil business enhancing the original successes of his father. He always preferred the title of “industrialist,” but his life was much more than that of a businessman. He became a recognizable figure in the fields of statesmanship and philanthropy as well. Jacob Blaustein was born in Baltimore on September 30, 1892. He was educated at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and took mechanical drawing lessons at the Maryland Institute of Art to prepare for a career as a mining engineer. He was a member of the class of 1913 of Lehigh University, but, as has been noted, he left the school to assist his father in business. Blaustein married Hilda Katz in 1925. They first met in religious school in the first grade at Baltimore’s Temple Oheb Shalom. Like her husband, Mrs. Blaustein was very active in local and national Jewish groups and charities. Jacob and Hilda Blaustein became the parents of three children: Morton (b. 1926), Barbara, and Elizabeth (Betty) (b.1930). It should be noted that Mrs. Blaustein was known for her own activities on behalf of Jewish charities and other philanthropic causes. Hilda Blaustein (b. April 1, 1892) was the daughter of Meier and Sophie Van Leer Katz. She attended Western High School in Baltimore, Smith College (1909-1911) and took additional courses at McCoy College, The Johns Hopkins University. She worked as advertising manager in her father’s business, K. Katz & Sons, 1917-1925. During her marriage to Jacob Blaustein, she listed her profession as “Communal Leader.” Jacob Blaustein, industrialist, was eventually drawn into the complex world of government service that included diplomatic negotiation, peacekeeping missions, and the extraordinary beginnings of the new nation of Israel. His gifts of statesmanship derived in part from his own passionate belief in the idea of universal Human Rights. Perhaps too, he was motivated from being a witness to the many horrific events before and after the Second World War. On a mission to Germany in 1946 at the invitation of Commanding General Joseph T. McNarney, he made a survey of Displaced Persons Camps. He often quoted his close friend, Dag Hammarskjöld, who believed that “without recognition of Human Rights we shall never have peace.” Blaustein was President of the Overseas News Agency and Chairman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency whose correspondents in Central Europe furnished background information of the anti-Semitic and other minority crimes taking place in the 1930s and 1940s. At the end of the Second World War, he headed the American Jewish Committee Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference where it called for the strengthening of human rights clauses in the treaties and the inclusion of guarantees to aid victims of persecution. In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Blaustein to the formative meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco. He played an important role in placing the human rights provisions in the UN Charter. When Blaustein returned to Washington after the death of Roosevelt, he reported to the new president, Harry S Truman. It was the beginning of a long association with Truman.
Some of Blaustein’s finest efforts were devoted to securing reparations for the victims of German aggression against Jews and non-Jews during the Second World War. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, of which Blaustein was Senior Vice President, functioned for fifteen years, 1951-1966. As the monies ($822,000,000) were received from the post-war German Government, agreement was required for the distribution of the funds. Fellowships and grants were given for scholars and rabbis to recount the experiences of Jewish people before, during, and after the war. Other funds were used for re-building institutions for the care and comfort of refugees in European countries. On July 21, 1956, Blaustein presented a statement before the Senate Appropriations Committee on behalf of refugees worldwide. In 1960, he was instrumental in winning from the Krupp armaments makers awards of $1,300 for each slave laborer employed there during the war. During this period, Blaustein had a working relationship and friendship with John J. McCloy, the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, and George McGee, Assistant Secretary of State and later Ambassador to Germany. It is a testament to Blaustein’s character and strength that his many missions and attendance at conferences did not prevent his attention to his business interests. He remained in charge of Amoco and at the same time gave his attention to the process of justice for victims of human rights abuse. Some accounts described Blaustein as being “active” in Jewish affairs, but it was more than activity. Work on behalf of the Material Claims Conference was once said to be part of “God’s work.”
Other presidents after Truman called on Blaustein to give further service to his country. President John F. Kennedy appointed Blaustein to the Board of Governors of the United Service Organizations and to the Advisory Committee on International Business Problems, both positions re appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson also appointed Blaustein to the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources (COMSER). Blaustein was known to be a generous donor to the Democratic Party, but it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who bypassed partisan politics with an appointment that brought to Blaustein personal satisfaction and the introduction to a special friendship. President Eisenhower appointed Blaustein as delegate to the United Nations’ 10th Assembly in 1955 where he formed a personal friendship and a working relationship with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. Blaustein was allowed several conferences with Hammarskjöld during which they discussed Israeli/Arab problems and other issues before the Assembly. During the period when the two men enjoyed this close association and shared a common interest in the plight of refugees in the world’s trouble spots, Blaustein traveled to Israel, Iran, Morocco, Africa, Turkey, Greece, and Poland and served as a catalyst between Hammarskjöld and Israel during the Suez situation in 1959. Following his missions abroad, Blaustein also briefed representatives in the State Department and the UN, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Ralph J. Bunche, Andrew Cordier, and George V. Allen. After the untimely death of Hammarskjöld on a mission to the Congo in 1961, Blaustein commissioned the Barbara Hepworth sculpture, Single Form, in honor of Hammarskjöld, to be installed at the UN building. Like his admired friend Hammarskjöld, Blaustein believed that peace and the question of human rights were closely related. In a December 4, 1963 speech (the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Lecture) given at Columbia University, Blaustein offered the positive proposal that a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights be appointed. It took thirty years, but this was finally accomplished when the UN adopted resolution 48/141 on December 20, 1993. Throughout his life, Blaustein maintained a schedule that was remarkable. He was recognized as a key figure in the petroleum industry, but his service to humanitarian and benevolent organizations brought him many tributes. Blaustein served a trustee of the Truman Library, the Touro Synagogue (Newport, RI), the Maryland Academy of Science, and the Dag Hammarskjöld International Foundation. He was member of the boards of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the United Nations Association, the American Heritage Foundation, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Atlantic Council for the United States, and many others. Blaustein was honored with many awards for his services as industrialist, statesman, humanitarian, and philanthropist. In 1951, he was awarded the Richard Gottheil Medal by the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity; in May 1955, he was honored at a luncheon by the Advertising Club of Baltimore; and in June 1956, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by his alma mater, Lehigh University. Blaustein received other awards from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the University of Maryland, the New York Board of Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, and the distinguished Scopus Award from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before the present age of personal revelations, Blaustein kept careful control of information written about him. He was not easily given over to self-aggrandizement. He reluctantly granted an interview to Forbes magazine published September 15, 1968 and titled “A Most Unusual Oil Man.” The article recounted many of his business and diplomatic accomplishments but was published only after Blaustein reviewed a draft of the piece. In a rare mention of his personal life, Blaustein described the schedule that filled his 16-hour days, his commutes to New York and Chicago for board meetings, and his belief that “work refreshes me.” At age 75 (in 1968) Blaustein had no intention of retiring. He was described as “slender and soft spoken, as a man who dressed as quietly as a bank president, who raised orchids, collected paintings (Gauguin, Derain, Utrillo), and who enjoyed listening to classical music.” When the article appeared, Blaustein received an outpouring of positive and congratulatory responses from friends and colleagues worldwide. One poignant letter came from a Russian emigree who at the time was a professor of International Relations at Lehigh. Professor O.M. Smolansky learned from the article that Blaustein had been an opponent of the former Soviet Union’s demands [1945] for repatriation of Soviet citizens, and he credited Blaustein for the opportunity to emigrate to the U.S. In another rare interview, with The Sunday Sun (February 26, 1961), Blaustein described his recreation “as consisting largely in changing from one phase of my work to another.” Perhaps this corresponding idea of work and recreation helps in explaining how one man could have achieved so much in one lifetime. For Blaustein’s life was one of remarkable achievement. He has left behind a legacy of good works and significant contributions to American industry and statesmanship. Jacob Blaustein died in Baltimore, Maryland on November 15, 1970. |