Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/459

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GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
385

steam and gas engines and steam turbines, of which Mr. Westinghouse is principal owner; and there have been for years works for making air brakes in England, France and Germany, while electric works were established at Havre in 1898. The most important of his works outside of the United States, is the plant of the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company at Manchester, England, which is almost a duplicate of the works at East Pittsburg. He is also the principal in large foundries and manufactories, at Trafford City near Pittsburg, at Newark, New York, and Pittsburg. A Russian Westinghouse Company has also been organized for handling the products of these various factories. It is estimated that the various works and companies which bear his name represent a capitalization of about one hundred million dollars, and give employment to more than thirty thousand people.

Mr. Westinghouse is a member of the Union League and Lawyers clubs of New York city; the Duquesne and Pittsburg clubs of Pittsburg; honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and has received several foreign decorations, including the Order of Leopold, from the King of Belgium in 1884, and the Royal Order of the Crown from the King of Italy, in 1889. In 1890, he received the honorary degree of Ph.D., from Union university.

He was married, August 6, 1887, to Marguerite Erskine Walker, of Brooklyn, New York.

Mr. Westinghouse is a man of attractive personality, modest, sincere and entirely averse to personal publicity. His life has been a strenuous one, and has entitled him to be called eminently successful as an inventor, as an executive and organizer, and as a financier. His ambition is summed up in the remark he once made when the air brake had saved a train from disaster: "If some day they say of me that with the air brake I contributed something to civilization, something to the safety of human life, it will be sufficient."