SWIFT do Franklin Swift (1839 1903), founder of Swift & Company, entered business for himself at West Sandwich, his home village on Cape Cod, with $20 bor rowed capital. That was in 1855 when he was 16. By 1875 he had developed an extensive live stock and meat business and had moved to Chicago to buy cattle for his eastern firm. He recognized the inefficiency of shipping live animals to the East, and foresaw and helped to bring about a revolution of methods in the live stock and meat industries of the United States and of the world. Giving up his eastern business to enter meat packing at Chicago, G. F. Swift experimented immediately with refrigerator-car shipments of dressed beef to New England; succeeded, and then worked to overcome eastern prejudice against western beef. For his part in making the western dressed beef trade a year-round commercial success he is regarded as one of the true pioneers of the modern packing industry.
Incorporation of Swift & Company in 1885 with capital of $300,000 marked the beginning of a phenomenally rapid growth. Capitalization reached the present $150,000,000 in 1918. Sales have exceeded a billion dollars in a single year. Ownership in 1939 was distributed among 59,000 shareholders, of whom more than 8,500 were employes and 26,000 were women. Employes totaled 6o.000 men and women. Swift & Company processes live stock and sells meat and by-products at wholesale. Butter, eggs, cheese, poultry, gelatin, soap, glue, animal feeds and fertilizer are among other leading products. The company operates so packing plants, Too produce plants, 375 branch selling houses, and T ,000 plant sales routes, all using 6,000 refrigerator cars; 33 cotton oil mills, 20 fertilizer plants, 9 refineries, 2 soap factories and more than foreign sales agencies. (G. F. Sw.)