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John B. Stetson Jr.

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John B. Stetson Jr.
A man with combed-back hair and a small mustache wearing a three-piece tweed suit.
3rd United States Minister to Poland
In office
August 29, 1925 – August 29, 1929
PresidentCalvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Preceded byAlfred J. Pearson
Succeeded byJohn Willys (as Ambassador)
Personal details
Born(1884-10-14)October 14, 1884
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 15, 1952(1952-11-15) (aged 68)
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Spouse
Ruby F. Carlisle
​
(m. 1906)​
Children4
Parent
EducationHarvard University (AB)
ProfessionBusinessman
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service United States Army
 United States Marine Corps
Years of service1917–20; 1942–45
RankColonel
UnitPersian Gulf Command
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II

John Batterson Stetson Jr. (October 14, 1884 – November 15, 1952) was an American diplomat and businessman. The son of John B. Stetson, he served as the United States Minister to Poland from 1925 to 1929.

Early life and education

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The son of famed hatmaker John Batterson Stetson,[1] John Stetson Jr. was born on October 14, 1884, in Philadelphia.[2] He studied at William Penn Charter School, and later at Harvard University,[3] graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1907, one year behind his original graduating class, due to illness.[2]

Career

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As his father's scion, Stetson Jr. took up a position as a director of the John B. Stetson Company; he also served on the board of trustees for his (and his father's) eponymous university, Stetson University.[4] His own ventures, however, were not so profitable: though he bought himself a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1930,[5] his company was banned from trading three years later,[6] soon went bankrupt and into receivership; he ultimately bought it out in 1936,[7] and later disposed of his NYSE seat.[3]

Before World War I, Stetson became interested in aviation, and trained at Signal Corps Aviation Station, Mineola, in 1916.[2] During the war, he was among the first to join the Aviation Section of the U.S. Signal Corps; he served in France until 1920 (as a member of the Section's successor, the United States Army Air Service), whereupon he was discharged as a captain.[3] He also translated Pero de Magalhães Gândavo [pt]'s Histories of Brazil into English that same year. Stetson later served in the Second World War, first joining the United States Marine Corps as a major in 1942,[8] before being transferred back to the army in 1943; towards the end of the war, he served as a colonel in the Persian Gulf Command.[2]

As a trustee of the university that had been named for his father, Stetson had a great interest in the history of Florida, using his money and influence to attract historians and purchase collections;[9] he also organized the Florida State Historical Society and later became an officer of the Florida Historical Society.[4]

Like his near-contemporaries Henry E. Huntington and J.P. Morgan, Stetson was also a noted book collector:[10] his collection was the subject of an article in The New York Times in 1935.[11] In 1920, he sold a series of letters and manuscripts written by Oscar Wilde.[12] In 1934,[13] he deposited a copy of Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'ame, bound in human skin, at Harvard's Houghton Library.[14] After his death, it was given to Harvard by his widow in 1954; and, as of 2014, it remains the only book in the Houghton collection that is so bound.[15]

Minister to Poland

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In 1924, Stetson was first considered to become the United States Minister to Finland during the Coolidge administration;[16] going so far as to return home, in late May, to discuss the matter with Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg.[17]

Ultimately, however, Stetson acceded to his predecessor, Alfred J. Pearson, who requested the post to Finland.[18] Instead, Stetson served, during the inter-war period, as the third and last United States Minister to Poland from August 29, 1925,[19] to August 29, 1929, exactly four years. In the aftermath of World War I, he adjudged Marshal Józef Piłsudski's government as good for America, in economic terms; and American business was more than happy to respond to the Polish need for capital and investment.[20] Still, one of his first official acts was to ask foreign minister August Zaleski to reduce the censorship of the press in the country.[21] In 1927, he toured the country, by plane and automobile;[22] and also donated his own funds to aid those suffering from flooding in Poland.[23] After leaving the diplomatic corps, Stetson criticized isolationism, especially in the matter of foreign loans.[24]

In 1981, alongside Hugh S. Gibson and Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr., Stetson was considered perhaps one of the few diplomats to have "understood and sympathized with Poland's strategic dilemma" during that time.[25]

Personal life

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Stetson married Ruby F. Carlisle in June 1907.[26] They had two daughters[2] and two sons: Stuart Carlisle, a Marine Corps officer killed in a plane crash in 1941;[8] and John B. Stetson III, a National Guardsman who also predeceased his father, in 1944.[27]

Stetson also contributed, inadvertently, to an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in 1921: a chunk of limestone, 40 pounds (18 kg), still in the shape of a Stetson hat; the result of an impulsive throw twenty years before into Fossil Creek.[28]

Stetson died in his sleep in November 1952, at his home in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.[3]

References

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  1. ^ "International: Suspended Stetson". TIME. September 25, 1933. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e Shipton, Clifford K. (April 1953). "John Batterson Stetson, Jr" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 63 (1): 18–20.
  3. ^ a b c d "JOHN B. STETSON JR., EX-DIPLOMAT, DIES; Minister to Poland in 1925–29, Air Captain in World War I —Hat Manufacturer's Son". The New York Times. November 16, 1952. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "John Batterson Stetson, Jr., 1884–1952". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 31 (3): 214–215. 1953. ISSN 0015-4113. JSTOR 30138899.
  5. ^ "J.B. Stetson Jr. on Stock Exchange; Former Minister to Poland Becomes Member and Forms Investment Banking Firm. (Published 1930)". The New York Times. October 31, 1930. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  6. ^ "Exchange Puts Ban on Stetson's Firm; Concern's Financial Condition Jeopardizes Creditors, Whitney Announces. Prohibited from Trading Officer of Stetson & Blackman, in Main Office, Philadelphia, Says Debts Will Be Met. (Published 1933)". The New York Times. September 14, 1933. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  7. ^ "BUYS STETSON ASSETS.; John B. Stetson Jr. Buys Claims Against Own Company, Bankrupt. (Published 1934)". The New York Times. July 26, 1934. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  8. ^ a b "Stetson Joins Again to Fight Nazi Menace; Ex-Ambassador Becomes Captain in Marine Corps (Published 1942)". The New York Times. September 13, 1942. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  9. ^ Patrick, Rembert W. (1962). "Julien Chandler Yonge". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 41 (2): 110–111. ISSN 0015-4113. JSTOR 30139911.
  10. ^ Avenoza, Gemma; Soriano, Lourdes (2011). "Sixteenth-Century Editions of Medieval Catalan Works in North American Collections". The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 105 (1): 7. doi:10.1086/680751. ISSN 0006-128X. JSTOR 10.1086/680751. S2CID 128326650 – via JSTOR.
  11. ^ Brooks, Philip (April 14, 1935). "Notes on Rare Books". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  12. ^ "Wilde Manuscript Sale Brings $46,866; John B. Stetson, Jr., Collection Under Hammer at the Anderson Galleries. 25 Letters Go for $7,900 First Editions and Gift Copies with Autograph Inscriptions Included. (Published 1920)". The New York Times. April 24, 1920. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  13. ^ Cole, Heather (June 4, 2014). "The science of anthropodermic binding". Houghton Library Blog. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  14. ^ Pritchard, Melissa (2014). "On Bibliomancy, Anthropodermic Bibliopegy, and The Eating Papers; or, Proust's Porridge". Conjunctions (63): 31. ISSN 0278-2324. JSTOR 24517831 – via JSTOR.
  15. ^ Cole, Heather (May 24, 2013). "Bound in human skin". Houghton Library Blog. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  16. ^ "TO NAME JOHN B. STETSON.; Coolidge Is Expected to Appoint Him Minister to Finland. (Published 1925)". The New York Times. May 4, 1925. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  17. ^ "Berengaria Held Up 18 Hours by Fog; Arriving from England, Anthony Fokker, Inventor, Tells of Airplane Tests. John B. Stetson Lands Rev. J.S. Prokhanoff Says Russia Now Has More Religious Toleration Than Under the Czars. (Published 1925)". The New York Times. May 24, 1924. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  18. ^ "J B Stetson apptd Minister to Poland". The New York Times. July 7, 1925. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  19. ^ "Stetson Presents Credentials". The New York Times. August 31, 1925. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  20. ^ Costigliola, Frank (1979). "American Foreign Policy in the "Nut Cracker": The United States and Poland in the 1920s". Pacific Historical Review. 48 (1): 94–96. doi:10.2307/3638939. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3638939.
  21. ^ Eyre, Lincoln (May 25, 1926). "Asks More News for America; Our Envoy Pays First Call on New Foreign Minister to Urge Action. (Published 1926)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  22. ^ "Stetson Tours Poland; American Minister Reaches Vilna on First Leg of His Trip. (Published 1927)". The New York Times. May 22, 1927. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  23. ^ "Stetson Aids Sufferers; Polish Flood Victims Receive Donation From American Minister. (Published 1927)". The New York Times. September 9, 1927. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  24. ^ "Stetson Criticizes Foreign Loan Policy; Former Envoy Says in Philadelphia That Promotion of Exports Should Be the Chief Aim. (Published 1932)". The New York Times. February 20, 1932. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  25. ^ Biskupski, M. B. (1981). "Poland in American Foreign Policy, 1918–1945: "Sentimental" or "Strategic" Friendship?: A Review Article". Polish American Studies. 38 (2): 10. ISSN 0032-2806. JSTOR 20148075.
  26. ^ "Vital Statistics: Engagements". The Delta Upsilon Quarterly. Vol. XXV, no. 3. Delta Upsilon Fraternity. May 15, 1907. p. 273. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  27. ^ "MAJOR JOHN B. STETSON 3d". The New York Times. July 19, 1944. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  28. ^ Sloane, Leonard (December 6, 1970). "Troubled Hat That Won the West". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
[edit]
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by United States Minister to Poland
1925–1929 		Succeeded byas Ambassador
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