Heritage of Success

Meyer Guggenheim paid $5,000 for a one-third interest in two Colorado lead and silver mines. By the end of World War I, the family business controlled more than 80% of the world’s supply of silver, copper and lead.

With seven of his sons already engaged in the family business, Meyer Guggenheim formed M. Guggenheim’s Sons. The firm would later reorganize into Guggenheim Brothers.

The Guggenheims created their own industrial relations bureau, dedicated to bringing reforms in the mining industry including pension plans, housing projects, hospitalization for employees, and accident compensation.

Daniel Guggenheim embraced a vision of going where no man had gone before and, on the recommendation of Charles Lindbergh, bankrolled Robert Goddard’s obscure research on rockets. Goddard’s work eventually led to the development of modern rocketry.

Alicia Patterson, Harry Guggenheim’s wife, founded the publication Newsday, a paper geared toward the rapidly growing suburban community of Long Island. Twenty-five years after it began publication, the circulation was 400,000 copies daily.

Solomon Guggenheim engaged the respected architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a unique contemporary art museum to display his vast personal collection of non-objective art. The partnering of these two visionaries resulted in one of the most famous and recognizable structures in the world, itself a work of non-objective art.

Harry Guggenheim adhered to the family formula by enlisting the services of the most preeminent horse trainers of the time to successfully achieve his goal of winning the Kentucky Derby with a horse named Dark Star.

The Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation issued a ten-year grant to the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution to aid in the development of exhibits and other museum activities.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation took ownership of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the first international institution in the Guggenheim collection of museums.

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation engaged three renowned land planners doing innovative work with neo-traditional town planning to collaboratively land plan Daniel Island, a 4,500-acre island near Charleston, SC.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation together with the Basque government engaged the renowned architect Frank Gehry and challenged him to design a new Guggenheim Museum that would be so innovative and spectacular that it would transform Bilbao, Spain from a struggling city into a vibrant cultural destination.