Business & brands / Politics
Marvin H. Chamberlain
1842–1923 · liquor and tobacco merchant, inventor, mayor of Detroit
Michigan-born schoolteacher turned liquor and tobacco merchant, council president and Democratic mayor (1886–1887), who later ran Detroit's garbage-reduction plant.
- Born
Woodstock Township, Lenawee County, Michigan- Died
- Detroit years
- 1864–1920s
- Field
- Business & brands, Politics
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Marvin H. Chamberlain grew up in rural Lenawee County, taught school as a teenager and attended Hillsdale College before moving to Detroit in 1864 to study at a commercial college. He worked as a bookkeeper and traveling salesman for the wholesale liquor house of F. A. Stokes, then in 1867 bought the firm with his brother as M. H. Chamberlain & Co. In 1873 the brothers organized the Fearless Tobacco Company, and in 1874 he helped found the Commercial Travelers' Association of Michigan, serving as its first president. He was also an original director of the Central Savings Bank. Elected to the City Council in 1882 and chosen its president in 1885, he lost the 1883 mayoral race but won in 1885, serving in 1886–1887. Later he patented a 'liquid separating process' for reducing garbage and won the contract for Detroit's garbage collection, building similar plants in other cities. He died in 1923.
Highlights
- Mayor of Detroit, 1886–1887
- President of the Detroit City Council (1885)
- Co-founder of the Fearless Tobacco Company (1873)
- Patented a garbage-reduction process used in Detroit (1898)