Career
Green started as the Principal of a high school in Groton, Massachusetts in 1864.[2][6] In 1865, he became second assistant librarian at the New York Mercantile Library.[2][5] From 1867 to 1869, he was promoted to full librarian.[2][5] From 1869 to 1873, he worked for Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, a law firm co-founded by William M. Evarts, Charles Ferdinand Southmayd and Joseph Hodges Choate.[2][5] He was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1873.[2][5]
Green moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1873,[2] and began practicing as an attorney in Chicago.[7] In 1886, he became the attorney of the South Park Commissioners.[2][8] Later, he was the attorney of the Chicago Board of Trade.[2][8]
Green was the co-founder of the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company in 1890,[5][9] by merging forty bakeries across the Midwest.[1] He was also a co-founder of the United States Baking Company.[5][9] By 1898, Green merged both companies with the Chicago-based New York Biscuit Company, which owned twenty-three bakeries from ten states on the East Coast.[4] The merger of a hundred and fourteen bakeries led to the National Biscuit Company,[1] co-founded by Green alongside Philip Danforth Armour, a meatpacking magnate, and Senator
Green first served as the general counsel of the National Biscuit Company, and later as the chairman of its board of directors.[6] In 1899, he was the first person to sell packaged biscuits instead of selling them in bulk.[3] Green went on to serve as the President of the National Biscuit Company from 1905 to 1917.[3] Under his leadership, the company marketed Uneeda biscuits, animal crackers and Oreos.[1] Green encouraged his employees to buy stocks, refused to hire children in his factories, and provided affordable meals.[4] However, he was opposed to strikes and organized labor.[4]
