The American automobile executive Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. (1875-1966), pioneered in automotive innovation and built General Motors into one of the world's largest companies.

Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., was born on May 23, 1875, in New Haven, Conn., the son of a prosperous businessman. In New York City he attended the Brooklyn public schools and the Polytechnic Institute, where he passed the exams to enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he was refused admission because he was too young. At the age of 17 he did matriculate there and received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1895.

Sloan obtained a position as draftsman in the Hyatt Rolling Bearing Company at Harrison, N.J. By this time he had married Irene Jackson of Boston. At the age of 26 he became president and general manager of the rapidly failing firm when his father and one other man bought control. Sloan quickly resuscitated...