Carleton Putnam

Carleton Putnam
BornDecember 19, 1901
New York City, New York
DiedMarch 5, 1998 (1998-03-06) (aged 96)
Charlottesville, Virginia
Alma materPrinceton University
Columbia Law School (LLB)
Occupation(s)Businessman, writer
SpouseEsther Auchincloss

Carleton Putnam (December 19, 1901 – March 5, 1998) was an American businessman, writer and advocate for racial segregation.[1] He graduated from Princeton University in 1924 and received a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Columbia Law School in 1932. He founded Chicago & Southern Airlines in 1933 which, in 1953, merged with Delta Air Lines. Putnam later served as chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines and held a seat on its board of directors until his death.[2][3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference ThomasJr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Jackson, John P. (2001). ""In Ways Unacademical": The Reception of Carleton S. Coon's The Origin of Races" (PDF). Journal of the History of Biology. 34 (2): 247–285. doi:10.1023/A:1010366015968. S2CID 86739986. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-14. The scion of an established New England family (and a cousin to Carleton Coon), Carleton Putnam was educated at Princeton and Columbia Law School in the 1920s. In 1933, Putnam established his own airline, building it into a successful business. After World War II, Putnam merged his airline with others forming Delta Airlines. [...] Putnam was convinced that the core problem with desegregation was the racial inferiority of the "Negro". Time and time again, Putnam claimed that the South was wasting its time with the call to defend "state's rights" and should instead focus on the true danger: race mingling. For Putnam, everything else was a side issue to the fundamental danger desegregation posed to continuation of white civilization.
  3. ^ "Carleton Putnam '24". Princeton Alumni Weekly. The Trustees of Princeton University. May 20, 1998. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2012. After Princeton, he became an aviation enthusiast. He earned his LLB in 1932 from Columbia Law School. Instead of practicing law, he turned a small California airline into a larger midwestern airline, Chicago and Southern, which merged into Delta in 1953. He was Delta's chairman of the board.