Early Life
William Averell Harriman was born in New York City, the son of railroad baron Edward Henry Harriman and Mary Williamson Averell, and brother of E. Roland Harriman. Harriman was a close friend of Hall Roosevelt (brother of Eleanor Roosevelt).
During the summer of 1899, Harriman's father organized the Harriman Alaska Expedition, a philanthropic-scientific survey of coastal Alaska and Russia that attracted twenty-five of the leading scientific, naturalist and artist luminaries of the day, including John Muir, John Burroughs, George Bird Grinnell, C. Hart Merriam, Grove Karl Gilbert, and Edward Curtis, along with 100 family members and staff, aboard the steamship George Elder. Young Harriman would have his first introduction to Russia, a nation that he would spend a significant amount of attention on in his later life in public service.
He attended Groton School in Massachusetts before going on to Yale where he joined the Skull and Bones society. He graduated in 1913. After graduating, he inherited the largest fortune in America and became Yale's youngest Crew coach.
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