George Zabriskie

George Albert Zabriskie (December 7, 1868 – January 2, 1954) was an American flour merchant, food-industry executive, wartime administrator, historical collector, and preservationist. During World War I, he served under United States Food Administrator Herbert Hoover as federal flour administrator, sugar administrator, and chief of the United States Food Administration's Distribution Division. He was also a director and later president of the government-owned Sugar Equalization Board, which purchased and distributed sugar in an effort to stabilize wartime supplies and prices.

After the war, Zabriskie remained active in the flour, baking, sugar, and banking industries. His principal interests, however, increasingly became American history, art, rare books, and historic preservation. He was the twenty-second president of the New-York Historical Society from 1939 to 1947, a president of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, and a member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Early life and business career

Zabriskie was born in New York City on December 7, 1868, the son of John Albert Zabriskie and Martha L. Knox Zabriskie. He was descended from a family established in colonial New Jersey in the seventeenth century. He attended New York public schools and began earning his own living while still a boy.

In 1883, at the age of fourteen, he joined the New York office of the Pillsbury Flour Mills Company. He later managed the office and became Pillsbury's resident director and New York representative.

Zabriskie's flour-distribution business grew into a large wholesale organization. Before entering federal service, he became well known in the New York produce trade and belonged to organizations including the New York Produce Exchange, the Merchants' Association of New York, and the United States Chamber of Commerce. In later years he served as president of the Empire Biscuit Company and as a director of the Columbia Baking Company. He was also associated with the Southern Baking Corporation and served as a director of the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation.

World War I food administration

When the United States entered World War I, the Food Administration recruited businessmen with experience in commodity distribution. Zabriskie joined its flour-distribution work during the winter of 1917–1918. Contemporary accounts credited his knowledge of the trade and his administration with helping operate the government's flour-conservation and distribution program.

On June 25, 1918, Herbert Hoover appointed Zabriskie national sugar administrator as wartime shortages became increasingly severe. He supervised the Sugar Distribution Division, including the certificate system used to allocate sugar among manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and household consumers. In October 1918 he was appointed chief of the Food Administration's Distribution Division, with responsibility extending beyond sugar to the distribution of other controlled foods.

Congress authorized the creation of the United States Sugar Equalization Board in July 1918. The corporation, all of whose stock was held by the federal government, was formed to equalize the prices of domestic and imported sugar, encourage production, and secure supplies for the United States and its allies. Zabriskie was elected a director and later succeeded George M. Rolph as its president after Rolph resigned because of illness. The board purchased the 1919 Cuban sugar crop and distributed it to American refiners. A later federal appellate decision recorded that the board accumulated approximately $39 million in profits, of which $30 million was paid to the U.S. Treasury, while it sold sugar at prices alleged to be below those that otherwise would have prevailed.

Zabriskie remained president while the board liquidated its operations after the war. In that capacity he corresponded with Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, and Calvin Coolidge about outstanding claims and the disposal of the board's assets. He later served as president of the United States Sugar Association.

For his wartime and postwar aid to European countries, Zabriskie received decorations from Belgium, Poland, and Iceland: the Belgian Order of the Crown, the Polish Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and the Icelandic Order of the Falcon.

Historical, artistic, and civic activities

Zabriskie collected paintings, watercolors, prints, rare books, manuscripts, and historical objects. His art holdings were particularly strong in the Hudson River School, and he donated works and documents to a number of museums and libraries. He served as chairman of the membership committee of the Museum of the City of New York, belonged to the Grolier Club, and was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in April 1940.

At the New-York Historical Society, Zabriskie first served as treasurer. In 1929 he donated funds and equipment to establish an in-house bindery. He became the society's president in May 1939 and served until January 1947, when he was named honorary president. During his presidency he supported expansion of the collections and the society's public historical work. He participated in the campaign to prevent the demolition of Castle Clinton in Lower Manhattan, appearing at hearings and helping organize and publicize preservation efforts.

An amateur painter as well as a collector, Zabriskie exhibited livestock and paintings and was a member of the Salmagundi Club. The club awarded him its Gari Melchers Memorial Medal in 1952 for service to the fine arts.

During Prohibition, Zabriskie was an officer of the Moderation League, a New York organization that advocated modification of the national liquor ban. A sterling-silver hip flask that he owned later entered the New-York Historical Society's collection, together with numerous other objects and works of art that he donated.

Bookbinding and writing

Zabriskie practiced fine bookbinding as an amateur hand-tooling and finishing specialist. His bindings often featured elaborate leatherwork, gilt decoration, and specially designed doublures. The New-York Historical Society preserves a collection of books bound by him. His collection of fine bindings and other books was sold by Parke-Bernet Galleries after his death.

He also wrote and privately printed short historical works, many issued as limited-edition Christmas books for friends. Their subjects included American national identity, naval history, polar exploration, folk culture, music, and New York maritime art. His 1933 The Bon Vivant's Companion was a compilation of cocktail recipes and included a drink named the "Zabriskie."

Personal life

Zabriskie's principal New York residence was on Central Park South. In 1911 he built Cliffdale, a fifteen-room summer house on a estate atop the New Jersey Palisades in Alpine, New Jersey. Built of native stone, the estate included terraced gardens, a pond, gatehouse, greenhouses, cottages, and farm buildings. John D. Rockefeller Jr. purchased the property in 1930 as part of a program to protect the Palisades from development and donated it to the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in 1933. The Works Progress Administration removed the house's upper stories in 1939; its large stone foundation and terraces remain beside the Long Path. His winter residence was The Doldrums, a Mediterranean Revival oceanfront house at 201 Ocean Shore Boulevard in Ormond Beach, Florida. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Zabriskie was an Episcopalian and a Democrat. He never married. Rollins College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1942. He died at The Doldrums on January 2, 1954, aged 85, shortly after returning from a drive. Herbert Hoover and bibliographer Thomas Winthrop Streeter were honorary pallbearers at his funeral in New York.

Selected works

• Why We Are Called Americans
• The Bon Vivant's Companion; or, How to Mix Drinks (1933; revised edition, 1948)
• Stephen Collins Foster (1941)
• Ships' Figureheads in and about New York (1946)
• Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1946)
• The Pathfinder (1947)
• John Brown: Saint or Sinner? (1949)
• Perry's Expedition to Japan, 1853–4 (1951)
• Songs of the Azooks: Being a Collection of Verse and Worse Sung by That Ancient and Honorable Society of Golfers, by One of 'Em

See also

• United States Food Administration
• Sugar Equalization Board

Further reading

External links

• George A. Zabriskie entry at the Frick Art Reference Library's Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
• History and photographs of Cliffdale from the Palisades Interstate Park Commission
• Zabriskie's bindings at the New-York Historical Society