KKL niSTORY
By Billy Arthur
Success In Soap Making
I low two brothers from Caswell County turned
Kels-Naptha soap into a philanthropic empire.
Tobacco and dcclricity arc readilv
recognized sources of wealth in
North ( -uolina.
Hut laundry soap? Hardly imaginable.
Never theless, Joseph and Samuel Fels of
( laswell County bubbled a family kitchen-
soap recipe into personal fortunes so siz¬
able that Samuel's charitable contributions
reportedly topped $-10 million. No figure
for Joseph's generosity was recorded, but it
also was considerable.
Not bad for two high-school dropouts.
They were sons of
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Jewish inuni*
grants who artived in Yanceyville in 1855
when Joseph, the fifth of seven children,
was an infant. Brother Samuel, the sixth
son. was bom there in 18(10. Their father
operated a successful general store and was
postmaster during the Civil War. Samuel
later recalled how. at age five, he and his
playmates had to
Нее
a downtown street as
Sherman's army approached in the dis¬
tance. The aftermath of war ruined the
family's business. Soon afterward, they
moved to Baltimore.
|oseph and Samuel showed initiative and
ambition at an early age. When Joseph was
just I I and Samuel eight, they established
a small but nourishing kite business in the
basement of their home. It whetted
Joseph's appetite to "get on with life*." So
great was his leliellion against the routine
and discipline ol the classroom that his la-
ther pet milted him toc|iiit school and join
him in making toilet soap in their kitchen.
It is believed the father sold homemade
soap while in Yanceyville, too.
In 1870 the business tailed, and father
and son went to work selling coffee on
commission. Tliev were succ essful but lim¬
ited in territory. In 1875 they moved to
Philadelphia, where a year later Joseph
went into partnership with a small soap
manufacturer. In 1877 he bought out his
partner for $4.000 and at the young age of
2:5 established the name Fels & Company.
Brother Samuel, then 1(1. quit school and
went to work with the company as a sales¬
man and peddlci. In 1881 at age 21. Samuel
was made a partner. Eventually, he became
president and served for many years.
As the company grew, the brothers real-
The first Fels (s’ Company store, 1876.
iz.ed the need to keep up with the ever-
changing demands for new toilet-soap
scents, colors, packaging and advertising.
Joseph began looking for a specialty prod¬
uct and found a badly inanagcxl firm that
was ti ying to apply the naphtha solvent pro¬
cess to a laundry soap. I le bought it in 1893.
Within three years. Fels-Naptha soap
dominated the American market and start¬
ed spreading abroad. (Somewhere along
the way. the brothers dropped the “h" in
naphtha.) Gradually, the family l>egaii to
amass great wealth.
In the depression following 1893, Joseph
Fels financed a program that put Philadel¬
phia's unemployed to work cultivating
vacant lots. That act became the basis for
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his later claim to lx-ing “a reformer and not
a philanthropist." He said he believed not
in charity but in promoting change. For the
remainder of his life, he directed his time
and benefactions to national and interna¬
tional social and political causes, particular¬
ly tax. penal and educational reforms,
women’s suffrage and Zionism.
When Joseph died of pneumonia at age
60 in 1914, brother Samuel took over the
company, piled up one of America's great¬
est fortunes, and maintained daily office
hours until two weeks before his demise at
age 90 in 1950.
Samuel left his holding in Fels &* Compa¬
ny to the Samuel S. Fels Fund, an organiza¬
tion he founded in 193(1 for "scientific inves¬
tigation" in the fields of medicine, nutrition
and government. In 1964. the Company was
sold to the Purex Corporation, which con¬
tinues to make Feb products.
After establishing the fund. Fels was
elected a member of the American Philo¬
sophical Society. He was active in promot¬
ing science and once said he regarded
research as "almost a spiritual thing
because anything you do to help the other
fellow has that feeling alxiut it."
Among its many undertakings, the
Samuel Fels Fund sponsored the Institute
of Local and Suite Government at the Uni¬
versity of Pennsylvania, the Research Insti¬
tute at Temple University's Medical School
and a basic study on nutrition at the Uni¬
versity of Not th Carolina. Feb also gave the
Fels Planetarium to Philadelphia and was
The guiding spirit" behind the city's
Franklin Institute Science Museum.
On his 90th birthday, the business leader
and civic contributor issued a statement
that is prophetic even today:
"Whatever may appeal to the contrary,
humanity is on the road to belter things.
Tunes now are better than they ever were.
So I don't worry about atom and hydrogen
bombs. 1 think the human family is grow¬
ing in intelligence....
"Democracy is truly the cause of
mankind. Russian communism, being
founded on an unmoral base, will eventu¬
ally fall of its own weight — provided we
and other democratic nations stay alert and
well armed."
Billy .Arthur is
и
veteran contributor to
The State.
14