Make the greatest possible contribution to society. ~ Owen L. Coon
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Biographical/Historical Information
Business executive and philanthropist Owen L. Coon was born on July 1, 1894 in the small town of Leroy, Illinois. Coon attended Northwestern University as an undergraduate from 1912 – 1915 and returned to NU for law school. He was a practicing attorney for six years before launching the Motor Acceptance Corporation of Chicago with his brother in 1925. This company later merged with and became known as General Finance Corporation, of which Coon remained Chairman. He died in 1948 after a prolonged illness.
Coon’s father, James S. Coon, was a bank cashier turned businessman who established the first independent telephone exchange in East Central Illinois. The Coon family later moved to Rantoul, Illinois where Owen attended Rantoul High School, graduating in 1912 at the top of his class.
That fall, he entered Northwestern University’s College of Liberal Arts, where he quickly distinguished himself. A skilled high school debater, Coon joined the NU debate team and competed throughout the Midwest. He was a member of the Gavel and Rostrum Society; was elected to the honorary debate society, Delta Sigma Rho; and won eight prizes in public speaking and debate. At Northwestern, Coon was also a member of the Phi Gamma Delta and Scribblers fraternities, editor of the Syllabus yearbook, volunteer at the NU Settlement Association, performer in various campus productions with the Campus Players and others, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Coon graduated in 1915 with a Bachelor of Arts and enrolled in the Northwestern Law School soon after. His legal studies were interrupted by World War I. He attempted to join the Marine Corps but was turned away for medical reasons. Coon then took over “agricultural service” on a family farm in Colorado, and continued his study for the bar exam. He enlisted in the Navy for a brief time in 1918 before returning to the Northwestern Law School in January 1919. Coon graduated with a Bachelor of Laws that spring, tying for first place in scholarship and receiving the honorary Order of the Coif.
Owen Coon started Motor Acceptance Corporation with his father in 1925. He took over General Finance Corporation in 1935. Byron had no involvement at the beginning to the best of my knowledge. Owen brought him into the company (Motor Acceptance) at some point after the beginning.
Owen Coon started Motor Acceptance Corporation with his father in 1925. He took over General Finance Corporation in 1935. Byron had no involvement at the beginning to the best of my knowledge. Owen brought him into the company (Motor Acceptance) at some point after the beginning. In 1935, Motor Acceptance merged with Detroit-based General Finance Corporation, taking the General Finance name. Ten years later, an article in the September 10, 1945, issue of Finance praised the “amazingly versatile executive” who had built General Finance into a $300 million company with interests in manufacturing and real estate as well as commercial and automobile financing.
As General Finance Corporation continued to grow and increase profits, Coon pursued his “busy man’s hobby” of helping young men. He was on the board of directors of numerous organizations and active in the Methodist Church. The Owen L. Coon Foundation was formed in 1946 to consolidate his many philanthropic activities.
Always generous to his alma mater, Coon established the Clarion Dewitt Hardy Scholarships in forensics in 1935, named after his favorite professor and debate coach at Northwestern. Hardy law scholarships were established in 1947. The James S. Coon Scholarship (created in memory of his father) endowed chairs in Law and Psychiatry, and a memorial debate tournament was established. Coon became an NU Associate in 1934 and a Life Trustee in 1936, and received the highest Northwestern honor, the Alumni Medal, in 1942. Several portraits at Northwestern memorialize Coon, including one in the law library that bears his name, one in Hardy Lounge in Scott Hall, and one outside the Coon Forum in the Kellogg Graduate School of Management’s Jacobs Center.
Coon married Alice Elizabeth Wright (NU 1917), but Wright became mentally ill and they were divorced in 1929. Coon married Louise V. Walker in 1930. Coon had three children, Eleanor Coon Briggs, Harry H., and Owen L., Jr.
Owen L. Coon died in 1948 at the age of 54, after being ill for some time. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Board of the General Finance Corporation, and his brother Byron Coon was President of the Corporation.
SEE ALSO: University Archives Biographical Files, Archives Reading Room, for additional biographical information.
Scope and Content
The Owen L. Coon Scrapbook began as a record of Coon’s years at Northwestern University. The scrapbook, titled “My Memory Book,” has the University logo embossed on the front cover and was intended to hold memories of “the sentiments and activities” of college life. Nearly half of the scrapbook does document Coon’s college life between 1912 and 1919. However, the balance of the scrapbook is filled with clippings, photographs, and ephemera that precede and postdate Coon’s Northwestern years-including items from Coon’s youth in Rantoul and from his travels in Europe, as well as general Coon family photographs and memorabilia.
Since a few of the items at the end of the book are dated as late as 1962, it appears that someone else (perhaps Coon’s daughter, who donated the scrapbook to the University) added to the collection of memories that Coon started. Some pages bear fragments of paper, indicating that items were removed at some earlier date. Throughout the scrapbook, few of the photographs are identified.
Records of his Northwestern years include programs and ticket stubs for events that he attended, as well as numerous newspaper clippings about the debates in which he participated. The scrapbook also holds photographs of group activities, dormitory life, and campus buildings; newspaper clippings relating to Coon’s friends’ college activities (as well as a page of their calling cards); and official University forms.
Coon’s early years are documented by his grade school and high school report cards, programs for events surrounding his high school graduation, and group and individual photographs of friends (mostly unidentified). There are a number of photographs of Coon as a baby, child, and young man, as well as photographs of his parents and grandparents.
Many pages of brochures, menus, ticket stubs, and other ephemera from hotels, steamship lines, and sites in Europe and the United States, document travels undertaken by Coon or other members of his family, beginning with a menu from the Red Star Line’s “Manitou” in 1909.
One scrapbook page toward the end of the book holds the cover (with portrait of Coon) of the Finance magazine issue (September 10, 1945) that featured him; another holds a copy of the Owen L. Coon Foundation Accountants’ Report from 1962.
Commitment To Donor Intent And Legacy
Two years after creating the Foundation, Owen L. Coon died suddenly at age 54. The Foundation Board of Directors at the time approved a Board Resolution and committed themselves to continue his commitment to public benefit, as follows:
“Whereas, a great tragedy, a great loss, a great sorrow has come to the Owen L. Coon Foundation in the death on August 2nd, 1948, of its beloved founder and president, and
Whereas, his untimely and early passing has placed tremendous although joyous responsibilities on all of each of us to carry into fruition the program, high in purpose and helpfulness which he envisioned, and
Whereas, this program now can only be consummated by those of us who remain and whom he has profoundly influenced by his way of life, his inspiration and his graciousness, therefore,
Be it resolved, that all of us as a group and each and every one of us separately, solemnly, yet gladly accept the responsibility and challenge which has come to us and pledge our most sincere devotion, thought, and work to carry out the program of welfare for others for which he established this foundation.” [Emphasis added]
Today, in 2010 the Owen L. Coon Foundation Board of Directors again affirms this commitment to donor intent and legacy. With each successive generation, we pledge to pursue the original vision and purposes of the founder, as reflected in the original Board Resolution quoted above.
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