Daniel Alef: 59 books

Biographical profile of William Wrigley, Jr., the master salesman who established the Wrigley chewing gum empire. Wrigley's story, as told by award-winning author and syndicated columnist Daniel Alef, is the quintessential Horatio Alger-like tale of rising from the depth of poverty to achieve unrivaled...

Although Samuel Colt died in 1862 at age 47, he had lived a remarkably full life, one filled with enough controversy, calamity, failure and success to fill several novels. And, at the time, he was America's wealthiest inventor. Colt's widow took over the reins of the Colt Armory, memorialized Colt's...

Success is not the absence of failure and the Milton Snavely Hershey story is concrete proof of this aphorism: he had a string of successive failures and only one success, the formation of Hershey Chocolate. His failures were so striking and so devastating his friends and family lost all confidence in...

In 1928 William Paley, son of one of the nation's largest cigar producers, purchased United Independent Broadcasters Inc., a collection of 16 radio stations. He renamed it the Columbia Broadcasting System and built it into one of the nation's largest radio networks before turning to television....

In 2008 U.S. domestic airlines carried nearly 750 million passengers domestically and internationally. The growth of commercial air transportation and the number of passengers flying today can be laid at the feet of one of the great aviation pioneers, Juan Trippe, who began a crusade to create an air...

In 1894, Will K. Kellogg was experimenting with a more digestible form of wheat for patients at his brother John's Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. Will mixed a wheat paste and accidentally let it stand overnight. In the morning he took the tempered remains, put them through a roller, and each grain...

Biographical profile of one of the titans of American broadcasting, David Sarnoff, a pioneer in the field of radio and television who founded the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and established a telecommunications and consumer electronics giant Radio Corporation of America (RCA). He ushered in the...

Central Park, a verdant refuge from the teeming, ever-shaded concrete corridors that crisscross Manhattan is beloved by both tourists and New Yorkers. The 700-acre park with winding paths, undulating hills, carpets of flowers in spring equally resplendent with fall colors dotted with lakes, was America's...

Biographical profile of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most interesting, paradoxical, and brilliant members of our Founding Fathers. Professor Carl Rubine of Columbia University called him "the first Horatio Alger . . . the original underdog who made it." It is hard to imagine anyone starting life with...

Biographical profile of Benjamin Franklin, the most famous and highly regarded American in Europe during colonial times and the Revolutionary War. One of the Founding Fathers, Franklin was instrumental in virtually every phase of the birth, creation and establishment of the United States. However, Franklin...

Forbes Magazine's annual lists profiling the ultra rich is one of the most successful series in magazine history. But B.C. Forbes had a fascination for the great tycoons of business long before founding Forbes Magazine. His book, "Men Who are Making America," a collection of short biographies about...

Biographical profile of Katharine Graham who once described herself as a doormat wife but subsequently became one of the most powerful figures in America during the 20th Century. The New York Times called her a "publishing legend." William Buckley the conservative columnist said she was a "mythogenic...

Biographical profile of Hetty Green considered by most historians to have been the richest American woman of all time. Dubbed "America's First Female Tycoon" or the "Witch of Wall Street" Green deservedly earned a place in the pantheon of American titans. Unfortunately she is better known for her...

Biographical profile of Armand Hammer, a man whose upbringing, opulent lifestyle and financial success are irreconcilable. Hammer was probably the world's greatest spinmeister. He not only managed to convince the American public that he earned millions by supplying medical supplies to the Soviet Union...