Amory Houghton

Amory Houghton (July 27, 1899 – February 21, 1981) and as national president of the Boy Scouts of America. He was chairman of the board of Corning Glass Works (1941–1961). In 1959 he was elected as an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.

Early life Houghton was born on July 27, 1899, in Corning, New York. He was the only son of four children born to Adelaide Louise (née Wellington) Houghton and Alanson B. Houghton, who served as a United States representative from New York, as well as the U.S. ambassador to Germany and Great Britain. His second cousin was actress Katharine Hepburn.

He was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from Harvard University in 1921. An account cited that it was businessman Philip D. Reed who recruited him to the OPM. In this position, Houghton served as the liaison between the government and American manufacturers. It was reported that he was responsible for surmounting almost half the burden of the then production crisis.

From 1943 to 1944, he was appointed as the chief mission officer for the Lend-Lease Administration,

On March 14, 1957, he was appointed the United States ambassador to France by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He presented his credentials on April 17, 1957, and served until he left his post on January 19, 1961, shortly before President John F. Kennedy took office.

Scouting Houghton received the Silver Buffalo Award in 1945 and served as the national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 1946 to 1951. He served on the World Scout Committee of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from 1949 to 1955. He was awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting, in 1955.

Personal life In 1921, Houghton was married to Laura DeKay Richardson (d. 2003), the daughter of James Richardson of Providence, Rhode Island. During his time as ambassador, his wife was referred to L'Ambassadrice Souriante (the Smiling Ambassadress) by the Herald Tribune. Amory Houghton Jr. (1926–2020), who attended Harvard, worked at Corning, and served as a U.S. representative from New York. Alanson Bigelow Houghton II (1930–2016), who married Billie Fisher Carr (1932–2013) and worked at Corning, later becoming an ordained Episcopal priest. James Richardson Houghton (1936–2022), who also attended Harvard and worked at Corning. Elizabeth Houghton (1922–2018) , who married Sidney James Weinberg Jr. (1923–2010), the son of Sidney Weinberg, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, in 1951. , who married David Wells Beer, an architect in New York, in 1962.

Houghton died at the Medical University Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 21, 1981.

Descendants Through his daughter Elizabeth, he was the grandfather of Elizabeth Livingston Weinberg, Sydney Houghton Weinberg, Peter Amory Weinberg (born 1957), the co-founder of Perella Weinberg Partners with merger specialist Joseph Perella in 2006.