Named after the Socialist Labor Party’s Arm and Hammer symbol, the quintessential art collector and savvy capitalist Armand Hammer was born this week on May 21,1898.

Hammer’s knack for building fortunes was evidenced early on when he attended Columbia College and Medical School at the same time as he multi-tasked running the successful family drugstore business.

His entrepreneurial talents continued with his relocation abroad in the 1920s to launch prosperous import/export businesses in the new Soviet Union including a lucrative pencil company. Returning home, his U.S. investments in oil production reached their zenith with his taking control and turning around the fortunes of Occidental Petroleum.

Hammer’s lifelong commitment to cultural, artistic and charitable works with the communist Soviet Union -- which he pursued as passionately as his financial projects -- led to conspiracy theorists’ attacks on his character.

Being a staunch Republican with close ties to Democratic Senator Albert Gore, Sr. further fueled these suspicions, as later revealed in CIA and FBI dossier files kept on him. However, charitable institutions had no problem with his rumored “secret history” and benefited greatly from his largesse -- including UCLA’s Hammer Museum of Art and the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West.

This Week in Wall Street History

5/19/08