Background and career
Frederick Christ Trump (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American real estate developer and businessman. He was the father of Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, along with four other children. Trump was born in the Bronx, New York City, to a German immigrant couple. He began working in home construction and sales in the 1920s before heading the real-estate business started by his parents (later known as the Trump Organization). He first built houses in Queens, expanding to build apartments for World War II workers on the East Coast. Trump reportedly built more than 27,000 low-income apartments and row houses in the New York area altogether. He was investigated for profiteering by a U.S. Senate committee in 1954 and again by New York State in 1966. Donald Trump became the president of his father's business in 1971. Two years later, they were sued by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division for racial discrimination against black people. According to The New York Times, Fred and his wife, Mary, provided over $1 billion (in 2018 dollar value) to their children, avoiding over $500 million in gift taxes. In 1992, Fred and Donald set up a subsidiary which was used to funnel Fred's fortune to his progeny. Shortly before his death, Fred transferred the ownership of most of his buildings to his surviving children, who several years later sold them for over 16 times their previously declared worth. Trump was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in 1927, but there is no conclusive evidence that he supported the organization. From World War II onward, to avoid associations with Nazism, Trump denied his German ancestry and also supported Jewish causes.
Trump's father, the German-born Frederick Trump (originally Friedrich), amassed considerable wealth during the Klondike Gold Rush by running a restaurant and brothel for miners. Friedrich returned to Kallstadt in 1901, and, by the next year, met and married Elizabeth Christ. They moved to New York City, where their first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1904. Later that year, the family returned to Kallstadt. Fred was conceived in Bavaria, where his parents wished to re-establish residency, but Friedrich was banished for dodging the draft. The family returned to New York on July 1, 1905, and moved to the Bronx, where Frederick Christ Trump was born on October 11, 1905. Fred's younger brother, John G. Trump, was born in 1907. All three children were raised speaking German at home. In September 1908, the family moved to Woodhaven, Queens. Many details of Trump's childhood come from autobiographical accounts and emphasize independence, learning and especially hard work – to the point of being somewhat fictionalized. At the age of 10, Trump worked as a delivery boy for a butcher. About two years later, on Memorial Day, his father died in the 1918 flu pandemic, quite suddenly according to Fred. From 1918 to 1923, Fred attended Richmond Hill High School in Queens, while working as a caddy, curb whitewasher, delivery boy, and newspaper hawker. Meanwhile, his mother continued the real-estate business Friedrich had begun. Interested in becoming a builder, Fred put up a garage for a neighbor and took night classes in carpentry and reading blueprints; he reputedly studied plumbing, masonry, and electrical wiring via correspondence courses, although other biographical sources limit his construction education to the period after high school when he was also working in the field. After graduating in January 1923, Trump obtained full-time work pulling lumber to construction sites. He studied carpentry and became a carpenter's assistant. Trump's mother held the business in her name until he reached 21, the age of majority. The company name "E. Trump & Son" appeared in advertising by 1924, by which year Trump ostensibly used an $800 loan from his mother to complete and sell his first house. Public records, however, do not support him building until 1927, the year the company was incorporated (and following Trump's 21st birthday). Trump purportedly built 19 more homes by 1926 in Hollis, Queens, selling some before they were finished to finance others. Investigative journalist Wayne Barrett posits that Trump exaggerated the length of his career in 1934 while arguing to a federal court why he should deserve to obtain a dissolved company's mortgage servicer and respective assets. In 1927, Trump was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan demonstration, although there is no conclusive evidence that he supported the organization.
In 1933, Trump built one of New York City's first modern supermarkets, called Trump Market, in Woodhaven, Queens. It was modeled on Long Island's King Kullen, a self-service supermarket chain. Trump's store advertised "Serve Yourself and Save!" and quickly became popular. After six months, Trump sold it to King Kullen. In federal court in 1934, Trump and a partner acquired the mortgage-servicing subsidiary of Brooklyn's J. Lehrenkrauss Corporation, which had gone bankrupt and had subsequently been broken up. This gave Trump access to the titles of many properties nearing foreclosure, which he bought at low cost and sold at a profit. This and similar real-estate ventures quickly brought him fame as one of New York City's most successful businessmen. Trump made use of loan subsidies created by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) not long after the program was initiated via the National Housing Act of 1934, which also enabled the discriminatory practice of redlining. By 1936, Trump had 400 workers digging foundations for houses that would be sold at prices ranging from $3,000 to $6,250. Trump used his father's psychological tactic of listing properties at prices ending in "... 9.99". In the late 1930s, he used a boat to advertise off Coney Island's shore; it played patriotic music and floated out swordfish-shaped balloons which could be redeemed for $25 or $250 towards one of his properties. In 1938, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle referred to Trump as "the Henry Ford of the home building industry". During this period, Trump predicted that he would profit from World War II. By 1942, he had built 2,000 homes in Brooklyn using FHA funds. During the war, the federal Office of Production Management (established in 1941) allowed the use of FHA funding for defense housing in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, owing to the proximity of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Trump planned to build 700 houses there, which would have been both his and the state FHA office's biggest project to date, but following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States's declaration of war on Japan, the project was dissolved in favor of defense housing at the East Coast's naval nexus, Hampton Roads by Norfolk, Virginia, where Trump was already working on an apartment complex. Congress added a provision to the National Housing Act generating mortgage insurance for defense apartments, through which Trump was allowed to own the properties he built for war workers. By 1944, he had constructed 1,360 wartime apartments, almost 10% of the total created in Norfolk. He also built barracks and garden apartments for U.S. Navy personnel near major shipyards in Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia, as well as Chester, Pennsylvania. Following the war, Trump expanded into middle-income housing for the families of returning veterans. From 1947 to 1949, he built Shore Haven in Bensonhurst, which included 32 six-story buildings and a shopping center, covering some 30 acres (12 hectares) and procuring him $9 million in FHA funding. In 1950, he built the 23-building Beach Haven Apartments over 40 acres (16 ha) near Coney Island, procuring him $16 million in FHA funds. The total number of apartments included in these projects exceeded 2,700. Decades after hiring PR man Howard Rubenstein to generate press about his life story mirroring the rags-to-riches novels of 19th-century author Horatio Alger, in 1985, Fred was awarded the Horatio Alger Award (for "distinguished Americans"). Radio and television personality Art Linkletter introduced Trump at the ceremony, with Protestant minister Norman Vincent Peale's wife (and previous award recipient), Ruth Peale, presenting him the award. During his speech, Trump stated that the key to his success was enthusiasm for his work and that he "used to watch other successful people ... that did good and that did bad and ... followed the good qualities that they had". He then (apparently erroneously) attributed to William Shakespeare the saying "Never follow an empty wagon because", pointing to his cranium, "nothing ever falls off". He went on to introduce his surviving family.
In early 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and other federal leaders began denouncing real-estate profiteers. That June, The New York Times included Trump on a list of 35 city builders accused of profiteering from government contracts. He and others were investigated by a U.S. Senate banking committee for windfall gains. Trump and his partner William Tomasello were cited as examples of how profits were made by builders using the FHA. The two paid $34,200 for a piece of land which they rented to their corporation for $76,960 annually in a 99-year lease, so that if the apartment they built on it ever defaulted, the FHA would owe them $1.924 million. Trump and Tomasello evidently obtained loans for $3.5 million more than Beach Haven Apartments had cost. Trump argued that because he had not withdrawn the money, he had not literally pocketed the profits. He further argued that due to rising costs, he would have had to invest more than the 10% of the mortgage loan not provided by the FHA, and therefore suffer a loss if he built under those conditions. In 1961, Trump donated $2,500 to the re-election campaign of New York mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., helping him gain favor for the construction of Trump Village, a large apartment complex in Coney Island. The project was constructed in 1963–64 for $70 million. It was one of Trump's biggest and last major projects, and the only one to bear his name. He built more than 27,000 low-income apartments and row houses in the New York area altogether, including Brooklyn (in Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay, Flatbush, and Brighton Beach) and Queens (in Flushing and Jamaica Estates). In 1966, Trump was again investigated for windfall profiteering, this time by New York State investigators. After Trump overestimated building costs sponsored by a state program, he profited $598,000 on equipment rentals in the construction of Trump Village, which was then spent on other projects. Under testimony on January 27, 1966, Trump said that he had personally done nothing wrong and praised the success of his building project. The commission called Trump "a pretty shrewd character" with a "talent for getting every ounce of profit out of his housing project", but no indictments were made. It was suggested instead that the state's housing program was in need of tighter administration protocols and accountability. A deputy attorney general corresponded with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding any reports it had about Trump before he was set to be deposed on March 31, 1966.
On July 1, 1965, Trump purchased Coney Island's recently closed Steeplechase Park for $2.3 million, intending to build luxury apartments. The next year, he announced plans for a 160-foot-high (49-meter) enclosed dome with recreational facilities and a convention center. At a highly publicized ceremony in September 1966, Trump demolished the park's Pavilion of Fun, a large glass-enclosed amusement center. He reportedly sold bricks to ceremony guests to smash the remaining glass panels, which included an iconic representation of the park's mascot, the "Funny Face". The next month, New York City announced plans to acquire the former park grounds for recreational use. Trump filed a series of court cases related to the proposed rezoning, ultimately winning $1.3 million. After the site sat vacant for several years, Trump started subleasing it to a manager of fairground amusement park rides. Over another decade, the city eventually succeeded in reclaiming the property. In July 2016, the Coney Island History Project held a special exhibit for the "50th Anniversary of Fred Trump's Demolition of Steeplechase Pavilion".
Fred's son Donald joined his father's real-estate business around 1968, initially working in Brooklyn. That year, Fred reputedly secured Donald a deferment from the Vietnam War by prioritizing maintenance for a tenant who (ostensibly in exchange) diagnosed Donald with bone spurs. In 1971, Donald became president of the company, with Fred becoming chairman. Donald began calling the company 'the Trump Organization' around 1973. The younger Trump entered the real-estate business in Manhattan, while his father operated primarily in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Donald stated, "It was good for me. You know, being the son of somebody, it could have been competition to me. This way, I got Manhattan all to myself." Fred reputedly said, "I gave Donald free rein. He has great vision and everything he touches seems to turn to gold. ... [He] is the smartest person I know." According to some sources, Fred himself planned the expansion to Manhattan. His granddaughter Mary L. Trump states that he was "intimately involved in all aspects of Donald's early forays into the Manhattan market". Louise Sunshine (organization vice president from 1973 to 1985) claims Fred was "behind [Donald] in every way, shape and form [including] financing". According to another source, Fred came to work "every day until ... he went to the hospital". In the mid-1970s, Donald received loans from his father exceeding $14 million. In 2015–16, during his campaign for U.S. president, Donald claimed that his father had given him "a small loan of a million dollars" which he used to build "a company that's worth more than $10 billion". An October 2018 New York Times exposé on Fred and Donald Trump's finances revealed that Fred created 295 income streams for Donald and concludes that the latter "was a millionaire by age 8", receiving $413 million (adjusted for inflation; $483.6 million in 2023 currency) from Fred's business empire over his lifetime, including over $60.7 million (unadjusted for inflation; $163.9 million in 2023 currency) in loans, which were largely unreimbursed. According to Trump construction vice president Barbara Res, Fred seated business guests in an off-balance chair and advised Donald to arrange his office so that adversaries could be forced to face the sun.
