Arthur Vining Davis (1867-1962) was the general manager of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) for more than half a century. He also served as president of the company and as chairman of the board for shorter periods.

Arthur Vining Davis was born on May 30, 1867, in Sharon, Massachusetts, the son of a Congregational minister. He was educated in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and Roxbury Latin School in Boston. He then went on to Amherst College. Upon graduation in 1888 he moved to Pittsburgh to take a job at $14 a week with a new company planning to manufacture a new, light metal.

Although aluminum had been on the market for a number of years, it was an inordinately expensive product, selling for $8 a pound in the 1880s. In 1886, however, 22 year old Charles Martin Hall developed a process for making aluminum in an Ohio woodshed which would substantially reduce the price. After...