Harvey s firestone biography

American businessman (1868–1938)

Not to be confused with Harvey Fierstein.

Harvey Samuel Firestone Sr. (December 20, 1868 – February 7, 1938) was an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, one of the first global makers of automobile tires.^[1]

Family background

Firestone was born in 1868 in Columbiana, Ohio, and grew up on the farm built by his grandfather.^[2] The family name was originally Feuerstein; Nicholas Feuerstein, Firestone's paternal ancestor, immigrated from Alsace in 1752 and settled in Pennsylvania.^[3] He was the second of Benjamin and Catherine (née Flickinger) Firestone's three sons; Benjamin also had a son and a daughter by his first wife.

In 1983, the original farm was disassembled and moved to Greenfield Village, a 90-acre (360,000 m²) historical site in Michigan founded by Henry Ford, and is now part of a larger outdoor museum.

On November 20, 1895, Fi