MSS 429 Benjamin P. Forbes Papers

              : 4SS 429
Benjamin P. Forbes Papers OHIO
H I S T O R Y
COLLECTION SYNOPSIS
12 cubic feet
Preliminary inventory
Provenance: The Ohio Historical Society acquired the Benjamin P.
Forbes Papers as a gift of Benjamin Platt Forbes in December
1974. Forbes's son, Benjamin F. Forbes, presented additions to
the collection in December 1977. Kay Weisman processed the
collection in May 1979.
Property Rights: The Ohio Historical Society owns the property
rights to this collection.
Copyrights: Mr. Forbes dedicated such copyrights as he possesses
in these papers to the public. Consideration of all other copy-rights
is the responsibility of the author and publisher.
Access: This collection is open under the rules and regulations
of the Ohio Historical Society.
Citation: Researchers are requested to cite collection name,
collection number, and the Ohio His~ orical Society in all foot-note
and bibliographical references.
Transfer: Eight cubic feet of books, pamphlets, maqazines, journals,
and bulletins on temperance, food and health, and world morality,
and several newspaper issues were transferred to the Library Division.
Related Material: The Audiovisual Department has collections of
photographs, negatives, postcards, business cards, engineering
drawings, and oral history tapes from the Forbes collection. Please
see the Benjamin Platt Forbes Photographic Collection inventory
( P- 237) .
Biographical Sketch: Benjamin Platt Forbes was born on April 13,
1873 in Olena, Ohio, one of three children of Carlos and Mary Jane
( Pond) Forbes. Forbes attended the Spencerian Business College
from 1890 to 1891, working at odd jobs to pay his tuition. In
1895, Forbes and his brother Ed brought two local newspapers and
combined them as the Cuyahoga County News. Forbes soon left the
newspaper business to become a cocoa salesman. He worked for a
Cleveland chocolate company for a year, and in 1898 became a sales-man
and manager for the Hershey Chocolate Company in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. Forbes returned to Cleveland in 1901 and started
the Forbes Chocolate Company for packaging cocoa.
About the same time, he also established the Benjamin P. Forbes
Company, a mail order business which sold Triumph fruit jar
wrenches and Glasbrite, a factory window cleaning compound.
Forbes incorporated this company in 1913.
OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1982 Vclrra Avenue. Columbus. Ohio 43211- 2491 ph: 634.297.2300 in: 614,297,2411
www. ohiohis? ory. org