Alfred P. Sloan

Biography

Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on 23 May 1875. He studied electrical engineering, first at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and then at MIT, where he graduated in 1895, and in 1899 he became president and owner of Hyatt Roller Bearing.

In 1916 Hyatt merged with other companies into United Motors, which soon became part of General Motors, and Sloan rose to vice-president. In 1919 he and his deputies created the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC). He became GM's president in 1923, its chairman in 1937 and stayed chief executive until 1946; he is credited with establishing annual styling changes. The Flint sit-down strike of 1936 led GM to accept the United Auto Workers as its bargaining partner.

During the Second World War GM's German subsidiary Opel produced military equipment for Nazi Germany, a period Sloan's memoir presents differently. He set up the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1934, and MIT's School of Industrial Management, opened in 1952, later took his name. Sloan retired as chairman on 2 April 1956, published My Years with General Motors in 1964 and died in New York City on 17 February 1966.