CONE

CONE, U.S. commercial and philanthropic family. HERMAN CONE (1828–97), the father of 13 children, emigrated from Bavaria to the U.S. in 1845 and ultimately established a successful wholesale grocery business in Baltimore. His two eldest sons, MOSES HERMAN (1857–1908) and CAESAR (1859–1917), began their careers as salesmen. During their travels through the South the two brothers were struck by the unstandardized goods and disorganized marketing methods of Southern cotton mills. In 1891 they founded the Cone Export and Commission Company, with a main office in New York, which served both as a banker and distributor for the Southern textile industry. The company helped the industry both to standardize and variegate its products and to free itself of its costly dependence on Northern finishers and distributors. During the financial panic of 1893 it saved many mills from bankruptcy. Moses and Caesar Cone established a mill of their own in Asheville, North Carolina (1892), and soon after founded three more mills in Greensboro, North Carolina. Within a few years they had joined the world's leading producers of flannels and denims and controlled 3% of the entire cotton industry of the South. Both Cone brothers became active in community affairs in Greensboro. They helped found schools and a YMCA, and Moses left a large part of his estate for the construction of a hospital named after him. Caesar was vice president of the American Cotton Manufacturers Association and held important local and state philanthropic positions. After his death ownership of the Cone mills passed to his son HERMAN. CLARIBEL (1864–1929), sister of Caesar and Moses Cone, studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University and was later professor of pathology at Women's Medical College in Baltimore. Together with her sister ETTA, she built up a large collection of French impressionist and post-impressionist painting, which is now housed in the Cone Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: DAB; Cone Export and Commission Co., Half Century Book (1941); New York Times (March 3, 1917), 9–15 (obituary). (Harry Golden)