Quick Facts
Biography
Marshall Field III (September 28, 1893 – November 8, 1956) was an American investment banker, publisher, racehorse owner/breeder, philanthropist, heir to the Marshall Field department store fortune and a leading financial supporter and founding board member of Saul Alinsky's community organizing network Industrial Areas Foundation.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, he was raised primarily in England where he was educated at Eton College and at the University of Cambridge. In 1917 he joined the 1st Illinois Cavalry and served with the 122nd Field Artillery in France during World War I. He built an estate in 1925.
On his discharge after the war ended, Field returned to Chicago where he went to work as a bond salesman at Lee, Higginson & Co. After learning the business, he left to open his own investment business. A director of Guaranty Trust Co. of New York City, he eventually teamed up with Charles F. Glore and Pierce C. Ward to create the investment banking firm of Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co. In 1926, Field left the firm to pursue other interests.
Already a recipient of substantial money from the estate of his grandfather Marshall Field, on his fiftieth birthday Marshall Field III inherited the bulk of the remainder of the family fortune. His brother, Henry Field, who was to have shared in the fortune died earlier in 1917.
Publishing industry
Marshall Field III was primarily a publisher, and was founder of the Chicago Sun which became the Chicago Sun-Times. The primary investor in the newspaper PM, he eventually bought out the other investors to become publisher. He also created Parade as a weekly magazine supplement for his own paper and for others in the United States. By 1946, Parade had achieved a circulation of 3.5 million.
In 1944, Marshall Field III purchased Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books. Following his death, his heirs sold the company back to its founders, Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, while Leon Shimkin and James M. Jacobson acquired Pocket Books.
Thoroughbred racing
A polo player, Field invested heavily in Thoroughbred racehorses both in the United States and in Great Britain. Among his successful British horses were three fillies who won the Irish Oaks and Golden Corn who won England's Middle Park Stakes and Champagne Stakes in 1921 and the July Cup in 1923. In the United States, Nimba was the 1927 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly, and Tintagel won the 1935 Futurity Stakes and was voted American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt.
In 1926, one year after his estate was built, Marshall Field partnered with Robert A. Fairbairn, William Woodward, Sr., and Arthur B. Hancock to import Sir Gallahad III from France to stand at stud in the United States. One of their horses, named Assignation, born in 1930, was the great-great grandfather of Secretariat.
The Marshall Field III Estate is a mansion built in 1925 on Long Island Sound which was designed by architect John Russell Pope. It was built on the grounds of a 1,400-acre (5.7 km2) estate—now called Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve—that Marshall Field III purchased in 1921. It is a New York State Historic Site.
Philanthropy
Marshall Field supported a number of charitable institutions and in 1940 created the Field Foundation. He personally served as President of the Child Welfare League of America. He also donated substantial funds to support the New York Philharmonic symphony orchestra and served as its President.
Death and family
Field died in 1956 of brain cancer. His widow and third wife, Ruth Pruyn Field, who had previously been married to sportsman Ogden Phipps, died on January 25, 1994 at age eighty-six. They had two daughters, Phyllis Field and Fiona Field. By his first wife Evelyn Marshall he had daughters Barbara Field and Bettina Field and son Marshall Field IV. By his second wife, of whom he was the second husband, Audrey Evelyn James (April 21, 1902 - February 14, 1968), whom he married on August 18, 1930 and divorced in Reno, Washoe County, Nevada, in 1934, he left no issue.