Clarence H. Mackay

Clarence Hungerford Mackay (; April 17, 1874 – November 12, 1938) was an American financier. He was chairman of the board of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Corporation and president of the Mackay Radio and Telegraph Company. Early life He was born on April 17, 1874, in San Francisco, California, to Louise Antoinette (née Hungerford) Bryant Mackay (1843–1928) and John William Mackay. His father was a silver miner and telegraph mogul who had been born in Dublin and emigrated to America with his parents. Soon after arriving in America, John's father died, and John sold newspapers and got a shipyard job to support his mother and sister. Eventually, he went west, and with three partners, formed a mining corporation and discovered the "Big Bonanza" in Virginia City, Nevada, which became the largest single deposit of gold and silver ever found. More than $100 million worth of gold ($ in today's currency) was extracted from that mine before it was exhausted in 1898, making all of them unimaginably wealthy. His father then married his mother and adopted her daughter by an earlier marriage. They lived between Paris and New York, where they brought up this daughter and their two sons, John and Clarence. Career Clarence sold his major source of income, the Postal Telegraph Company, to the new International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) for an enormous amount of stock. The 1929 stock market crash wiped him out. He survived the Great Depression by selling his art and antiques. He was eventually reconciled with his daughter Ellin and her husband Irving Berlin when he went to comfort her on the cot death of her baby. Irving Berlin always treated his father-in-law with respect and affection. Both Ellin Berlin and Clarence's granddaughter, Mary Ellin Barrett, were successful writers. Personal life