Joseph Fels (16 December 1853[1]–22 February 1914[2]) was an American soap manufacturer, millionaire, Georgist and philanthropist.
Biography
Born of German Jewish immigrants in Halifax County, Virginia, Fels moved with his family to Baltimore in 1866; by 1876 he had assumed control of a soap manufacturing company based in Philadelphia, and brought two of his brothers in as partners shortly after. One of them, Samuel Simeon Fels, became president of the firm.
In 1894 he developed the Fels-Naptha soap brand, historically used as a home remedy in the treatment of contact dermatitis caused by exposure to poison ivy, poison oak, and other oil-transmitted organic skin-irritants. The soap is still marketed by the Dial Corporation as of 2011.
While his own fortune rapidly accumulated, as early as 1890 Fels had become an adherent of Henry George and his proposed