Born on a
New Hampshire farm on July 20, 1850, Shedd arrived in Chicago, Illinois, in 1871 and began working as a stock clerk for
Marshall Field. By 1901, he had worked his way up to a vice-presidency and took over as president upon Field's death in 1906. Field himself described Shedd as "the greatest merchant in the United States," and, indeed, under Shedd's presidency
Marshall Field & Company became the largest store in Chicago and the largest wholesale and dry goods company in the world. Shedd was a civic leader and founding member of the
Commercial Club of Chicago, which continues to play an active role in the city's efforts to maintain itself as a world-class metropolis. One of the Commercial Club's most notable undertakings was the sponsorship of
Edward Bennett and
Daniel Burnham's
Plan of Chicago, which was released in 1909 and which to this day is considered to be one of the most important urban planning documents ever created. One of Chicago's major
philanthropists, he contributed extensively to Chicago charities, universities and museums, and in the early 1920s he provided $3 million to build Chicago's
Shedd Aquarium, as a complement to The
Field Museum (founded in 1893 as a part of the
World's Columbian Exposition and renamed in honor of Marshall Field in 1905) and The
Art Institute of Chicago (whose current building was also a product of the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition). Completed in 1930, the
Shedd Aquarium remained the world's largest aquarium for most of the century. In 1920, Shedd provided the funds for the construction of the
Shedd-Porter Memorial Library in
Alstead, New Hampshire. He died of
appendicitis in Chicago on October 22, 1926. He was interred at Rosehill Mauseoleum in
Rosehill Cemetery. ==Legacy==