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Edward Crosby Johnson II (January 19, 1898 – April 2, 1984) was an American businessman and lawyer who founded Fidelity Investments.

Biography

Edward Crosby Johnson II was born in Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1898, to Samuel Johnson, a partner in the dry-goods firm C.F. Hovey and Co. and Josephine Johnson (née Forbush). Johnson came from a family of New England Puritan ancestry. He graduated from Milton Academy in 1916, and enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve as a second class radioman during World War I from August 1917 to July 1918. He graduated from Harvard College in 1920 and Harvard Law School in 1924.

After receiving a law degree, Johnson became an associate at Boston law firm Ropes, Gray, Boyden & Perkins and also became involved in stock market research. Diana B. Henriques wrote in 1995: "...those who knew Ed Johnson sensed...an openness to the new and the exotic. Most of all, there was a very un-Bostonian passion for the quick, rude, sharp-witted world of Wall Street."

He served as the president the Fidelity Fund, incorporated on May 1, 1930, as well as the vice president and treasurer of the fund's board of directors. From 1946, he served as the founding chairman of Fidelity Management and Research. By 1958, Johnson managed over $400 million combined with $357 million in the Fidelity Fund and $59 million in his new Puritan Fund. Beginning in 1969, Johnson chaired the board of Fidelity Management and Research.

He died in Cataumet, Massachusetts, of Alzheimer's disease in 1984, and his funeral was held at Milton's Universalist First Parish Church.

References

1. Edward Johnson 2d, Retired Board Chairman at Fidelity. Boston Globe, Apr. 4, 1984
2. Alex Taylor III, "Why Fidelity Is The Master of Mutual Funds" (1986) archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/09/01/67986/index.htm
3. ^ "Edward C. Johnson II". Harvard Business School. Retrieved March 4, 2017.
4. ^ Henriques 1995, pp. 44–46
5. "Who's Afraid of Abby Johnson?". Boston Magazine. 2018-08-07. Retrieved 2020-04-15.
6. ^ Henriques 1995, p. 47
7. ^ "Edward Johnson 2d, Was 86; Began Investment Company". The New York Times. October 5, 1984. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
8. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/fidelity-investments-inc-history/
9. Porter, John Sherman, ed. (1944). Moody's Manual of Investments: American and Foreign. New York: Moody's Investor Service. p. 754.
10. Henriques 1995, p. 120
11. Henriques 1995, p. 202

Works cited

• Henriques, Diana B. (1995). Fidelity's World: The Secret Life and Public Power of the Mutual Fund Giant. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-81299-1.

External links

• Fidelity Investments Inc History
• Fmr Corp
• Moody's Manual of Investments

• 1898 births
• 1984 deaths
• American company founders
• American chairpersons of corporations
• Businesspeople from Boston
• Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in the United States
• Harvard Law School alumni
• Milton Academy alumni
• Neurological disease deaths in Massachusetts