Donner, Robert, Mr.

Biography

Robert Newson Donner was the son of philanthropist and businessman William H. Donner [1864-1953] and his first wife Adella May Newson. The elder Donner was born and raised in Indiana, attended Hanover College there in 1882-1883, and worked in steel mills and became interested in the manufacture of tin plate. In 1894 he became manager of the National Tin Plate Company in Anderson, Indiana. Donner went on to be president of the Union Steel Company (1899-1903) the Cambria Steel Company (1912-1916) and his own Donner Steel Company (1916-1929). Acquainted with fellow industrialists Andrew Mellon and Henry Frick, William Donner served as a director of the Mellon National Bank of Pittsburgh and the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company. After his retirement from business in the early 1930s, Mr. Donner devoted himself to his philanthropic activities, mostly directly toward research for the cure of cancer. In 1932 he gave two million dollars to establish the International Cancer Research Foundation; he also donated to radiology department of the University of Pennsylvania and in 1947 purchased a 64 room home in Palm Beach which he donated to the Institutuum Thomae of Cincinnati to be used as a laboratory for the study of cancer. In 1938 Mr. Donner relocated to Switzerland, following a dispute with the Us federal government regarding income taxes. Robert Donner was one of five children of William Donner, who married first in 1890 to Adella May Newson and secondly in 1909 to Dora White Browning. Robert's siblings are William Henry Donner, Jr. [d. 1929], Joseph William Donner, Elizabeth Browning Donner Hanson, and Dora Donner Ide [Mrs. John Jay Ide].

Bibliography

1953

The New York Times, 4 November 1953 [obituary for William Donner]

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