William Stix Wasserman (1901-1979)
William S. Wasserman, Financier, of 895 Park Avenue & Red Hook, New York
He was born in Philadelphia to parents who'd both emigrated from Germany. He graduated from the Taft School and Princeton University. He was the founding (1927) President of the Investment Corporation of Philadelphia, venture capitalists specializing in new technologies. He was an American delegate to the World Economic Conference in Berlin in 1932; an adviser to the U.S. delegation to the International Labor Confernce in Geneva in 1937; and, during World War II, he was Chief of the United States lend‐lease mission to Australia while accompanying two financial missions to Britain for the Office of Economic Warfare in 1943. He was also a special adviser to the Chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation. He was a strong advocate of expanding world trade and at the conclusion of World War II he wrote in The New York Times Magazine: “Today it should be apparent that without a flourishing international trade there can neither be peace nor prosperity in tomorrow's world". He was the director of several diverse companies and a trustee of Bard College. He lived between 895 Park Avenue in Manhattan and the Atalanta Estate (formerly known as Steen Valetje) near Rhinebeck. He married Marion Fleisher and they were the parents of four children.
