Читать книгу History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume 2: Biographical - George Curtis Waldo jr. - Страница 8

No adequate analysis of the life work of Dr. I. De Ver Warner can be given until the great enterprise which he founded reaches its full fruition as a factor in the business development of Bridgeport and indeed of the country. Yet there is much that may with profit be set down as a record of business enterprise and a stimulus to the efforts of others. His early advantages were no greater than those enjoyed by others, but opportunity was ever to him a call to action and, moreover, his life record is proof of the statement that power grows through the exercise of effort. He was continually called upon to cope with more and more complex business problems and his ability was at all times found adequate, for from each day's activities and experiences he learned the lessons therein contained and therefore brought added knowledge to the work of the succeeding day.

While Dr. Warner was for many years a resident of Bridgeport he was a native son of neither the city nor the state. His birth occurred at Lincklaen, Chenango county. New York, March 26, 1840. He obtained a public school education in that locality and his interest in scientific knowledge led to his preparation for the practice of medicine. His preliminary reading was pursued under the direction of Dr. C. M. Kingman, of McGrawville, New York, after which he entered the Geneva Medical College and was graduated with the class of 1861. He then located for practice in Nineveh, Broome county, New York, but after two years returned to McGrawville and succeeded to the practice of his former preceptor upon Dr. Kingman's retirement. His study of disease led him to the conviction that many of the ills of the human race are due in great measure to modes of living and dress. He attempted to revolutionize customs and dissipate ignorance on the subject by delivering a series of popular lectures on the organization of the physique. He won wide fame and he became prominently known as an advocate of reform in the manufacture of Somen's corsets, claiming that the style of corset then in use was greatly undermining the welfare of the human race. He therefore began the manufacture of a garment that would correct former abuses and this garment became known as the Warner health corset. His brother, Lucien C. Warner, became associated with him in the manufacture, of the corset in a little room at McGrawville, New York. The business steadily grew and in 1876, believing that a removal would prove advantageous, leading to a larger growth of their enterprise, the business was transferred to Bridgeport, where it has grown by leaps and bounds. On their arrival here a four story building was erected and while they had but six employees when they came to Bridgeport, at the time of Dr. Warner's death there were more than three thousand, with a factory covering more than four city blocks. The history of the business is given at length on another page of this work. Not only did Dr. Warner and his brother prove adequate to the demands of a growing and complex business, but they maintained also a spirit of broad humanitarianism in relation to the employees. Dr. De Ver Warner ever manifested kindness and a fraternal feeling toward those in his service and to this end he founded the Seaside Institute for their special benefit and recreation in 1887. Many social affairs, too, were instituted for lunch hours and other periods and it was the feeling of the company that the noon time should be made an hour of rest and enjoyment. Not only did Dr. De Ver Warner remain an active factor in the control and management of the great corset industry developed under the name of the Warner Brothers Company but was also a prominent factor in the financial and public interests of the city and state. He became the president of the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company and the Bridgeport Gas Company and was a director of the Pequonnock National Bank, all of which prospered through the aid of his executive ability. He was also a director of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company up to the time of his demise.

Dr. Warner was twice married. In 1862 he wedded Lucetta M.'Greenman, of McGrawville, New York, and they became the parents of three children, of whom two survive, De Ver H. and lira. H. W. Bishop. The former took up the extensive business interests of the father and is one of the most prominent representatives of commercial, industrial and financial activity in Bridgeport and New England and has also been an important factor in studying and solving civic problems, giving much thought and consideration to all those involved and complex questions which have to do with the welfare of the individual and of the community. He is arrayed on the side of better housing conditions, better transportation, improved hospital facilities and larger park areas and he is studying these questions from the standpoint of a practical business man. He believes that houses thoroughly up-to-date in every particular should be built so that they may be rented for as low as fifteen dollars per month and thus provide adequate homes for workmen. He believes that the city government must solve the transportation problem and open up more arteries of traffic He believes, too, that medical treatment for the poor as well as the rich should be ensured and that hospitals should be made cooperative and as a precaution against disease he believes that small parks should be opened in the congested districts and that Steeplechase island should be purchased and operated municipally for the people. In these connections he is carrying out in accordance with modem methods and demands ideas which his father attempted to embody in the early development of industrial Bridgeport. Dr. Do Ver Warner, following the death of his first wife, married Eva Follett, and to them was born a son, Ira Follett.

Dr. Warner's philanthropy was large but unostentatious. He was active in the erection of the fine Young Men's Christian Association building at Bridgeport and was chairman of the building committee for both the Bridgeport branch and the state association. It is said that he was interested in every line of human endeavor and every project having to do with the public welfare of Bridgeport, and' few men have realized or met so fully the obligations and responsibilities of wealth.