Isaac Rice - Biography

Biography

Born in Germany, Rice's mother emigrated to the United States in the second half of the 19th century to the USA when he was nearly six years of age. He was educated at the Central High School in Philadelphia and later, at nineteen he was sent to Paris where he studied music for three years. While in Paris he sent stories to the Philadelphia newspapers for printing. On his return to America, he moved to New York city and practiced music before going back to school to become a lawyer. After graduating from Columbia College of Law in 1880 he practiced law for the rest of the decade.

During the practice of law he became more aware of and busy in the transportation business, mainly at the recently expanding Railroads empires, and its multiplying legal imbroglios. He was invited to start a publishing company by some associates from the Music printing societies. In the 1890s he was looking to move and diversify and possibly investing early in the new emerging companies with a potential for growth. He became first president of the "Forum" publishing and then later on, of the Electric Storage Battery Co. in 1897.

At that time and position, he became aware of the attempts since 1896 to keep afloat the costly operations and deliver the first efficient submergible boats for the US Military, running mainly on electrical power while underwater. A year after the launching afloat of their first vessel, the Holland VI when the management of John Philip Holland and Lewis Nixon became short to finish making its last details operable, running out of gas and effective cash, Isaac Rice moved in taking over and renaming the company officially as the Electric Boat co. on 7 February 1899. A few months after negotiations and multiple testings, the United States Government purchased it, renamed it, and awarded to the new trasppassed company a contract to build its first fleet of Plunger class Navy submarines.

During World War I, Rice's new company (Electric Boat) and its subsidiaries built 85 Navy submarines and 722 submarine chasers. Electric Boat is the parent company to General Dynamics Corporation and this one is the company's "Cold War" progeny.

In 1902 he received from Bates College the honorary degree of LL.D.

The books published by Rice include: "What Is Music?" (New York, 1875), which was supplemented by "How the Geometrical Lines Have Their Counterparts in Music" (ib. 1880). The latter work was subsequently made part of the "Humboldt Library of Science." He also contributed a large number of articles to the "Century," The Forum, and "North American Review" publications.

Rice married Julia Hyneman Barnett in 1885. They had six children: Muriel, Dorothy, Isaac Leopold Jr., Marion, Marjorie and Julian.