Читать книгу History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 3 - Группа авторов - Страница 12

As one who has attained conspicuous success in connection with the business and industrial activities of the nation, and standing at the head of one of the important and magnificent manufacturing and commercial enterprises of Westchester county, there is a manifest consistency in according in this compilation at least a brief review of the life of Leonard Jacobi, of Yonkers, who is the president of the Nepera Chemical Company, of Nepera Park. His exceptional business sagacity and acumen can be recognized when we revert to the circumstance that he had by his own efforts accumulated a sufficient competency to enable him consistently to retire from active business at an age when the average man is but formulating plans and initiating his business career.

The subject of this sketch received his educational discipline in the public schools of New York city, and thereafter instituted his independent business career by going to San Francisco, California, where he became a stockbroker. Instituting operations in this line in the year 18:74, his success was almost phenomenal, as is shown in the fact, already referred to incidentally, that he was able to retire at the age of twenty-seven years, having accumulated a fortune by his wise manipulations and rare business discrimination. The story of his brilliant success is as brief as it was astonishing, taking into consideration his youth and the difficulties with which he naturally had to contend.

After retiring from business in California, Mr. Jacobi devoted fourteen years to travel and recreation in Europe, and while thus journeying about from one place of interest to another he chanced to form the acquaintance of Dr. Leo Baekeland, who is now associated with him in the great enterprise which they have built up in Westchester county. A more formal description of this industry appears in connection with the sketch of Dr. Baekeland, which is published on other pages of this work. Suffice it to say at this point that the enterprise was inaugurated in 1893, when the Nepera Chemical Company was organized, its principal product being the celebrated Velox photographic paper — a sensitized paper for use in printing from ordinary photographic negatives, and one whose facility in manipulation is bound to revolutionize this feature of the photographic processes. The paper is described more fully in the review of the life of its inventor, Dr. Baekeland, but it will not be out of place to state here that the pronounced points of superiority in the product are that it is sensitive to what the photographer would call very "slow" light— that is, prints can be made with utmost facility not alone by daylight, but from the light of ordinary gas or lamp; while the process of developing and fixing the prints is by gas light or any artificial light. The Velox paper, however, gives results which equal anything that can be obtained from aristo papers, and also gives the depth of tone-shadows and lights which the aristo paper invariably blurs. In this respect the Velox is superior to both the aristo and the old-time albumen paper, which likewise had its elements of superiority over the former in the preservation of the more delicate values of the various negatives.

The Nepera Chemical Company has an extensive and finely equipped plant, which covers a large area, and here employment is afforded to one hundred individuals. The Velox paper met with an almost instantaneous favor on the part of photographers, and the product of the factory is now shipped to every civilized country in the world, foreign agencies having been established in a number of the principal cities abroad. In addition to these agencies in foreign lands, a number have been established in the various sections of the United States, and a large corps of traveling salesmen is employed by the company in the introducing and sale of the Velox paper. Besides Velox, however, the Nepera Chemical Company has the only manufactory in the world that produces all kinds of photographic papers, other manufacturers having their specialties only. In this respect the Nepera Chemical Company stands unique in its branch of industry. The enterprise has important bearing on the industrial status and prosperity of Yonkers, and is duly appreciated by all classes of citizens who are interested in the progress of the city. The company largely employ home labor and skill and pay good salaries, much of the work requiring the co-operation of practical chemists and men of education.

Personally Mr. Jacobi is a man of most pleasing personality, genial and affable in manner, and he has gained a distinctive popularity in both business and social circles. He is a thorough business man, alert and progressive, and a hard worker. He is quick and energetic, and is recognized for his superior ability in handling affairs of great breadth. He has pushed the business of the Nepera Chemical Company to the front with great rapidity, expending each year many thousand dollars in advertising, realizing that by this typical American method a business may be built up in one year to a point which could not be reached in ten by the slow system of gradual introduction of products by personal solicitation alone. He stands distinctively as the business head of the enterprise; Dr. Baekeland devotes his attention to the development and improvement of the manufacturing processes, by continued investigation and experimentation, being also secretary of the company; while Albert G. C. Hahn, M. S., is treasurer. Mr. Jacobi took up his residence in Yonkers in 1897.