Marshall Field III

Marshall Field III (September 28, 1893 – November 8, 1956) was an American investment banker, publisher, racehorse owner/breeder, philanthropist, grandson of businessman Marshall Field, heir to the Marshall Field department store fortune, and a leading financial supporter and founding board member of Saul Alinsky's community organizing network Industrial Areas Foundation.

Born in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, he was the son of Albertine Huck, daughter of German businessman Louis Carl Huck, and Marshall Field II. He was raised primarily in England, where he was educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge.

During a westbound Atlantic crossing aboard the RMS Lusitania in September 1914, Field became enamoured with fellow passenger Evelyn Marshall, and proposed to her before the liner's arrival in New York, less than a week after sailing from England.

In 1917, he joined the 1st Illinois Cavalry and served with the 122nd Field Artillery in France during World War I. He built an estate in 1925.

On his discharge after the war, Field returned to Chicago where he went to work as a bond salesman at Lee, Higginson & Co. After learning the business, he left to open his own investment business. A director of Guaranty Trust Co. of New York City, he eventually teamed up with Charles F. Glore and Pierce C. Ward to create the investment banking firm of Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co. In 1926, Field left the firm to pursue other interests.

Already a recipient of substantial money from the estate of his grandfather Marshall Field, on his 50th birthday he inherited the bulk of the remainder of the family fortune. His brother, Henry Field, who was to have shared in the fortune, had died in 1917.

He was primarily a publisher, and in late 1941 he founded the Chicago Sun, which later became the Chicago Sun-Times. The primary investor in the newspaper PM, he eventually bought out the other investors to become the publisher. He also created Parade as a weekly magazine supplement for his own paper and for others in the United States. By 1946, Parade had achieved a circulation of 3.5 million.

In 1944, Marshall Field III formed the private holding company Field Enterprises. That same year, he purchased Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books. After his death, his heirs sold the company back to its founders, Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, while Leon Shimkin and James M. Jacobson acquired Pocket Books.