Edward S. Jordan

His mother, Kate Griffin Jordan, supported the family by running a series of small general stores along the Overland Trail.

Jordan supported his own way through the University of Wisconsin–Madison and achieved high grades while working as a sports reporter for a Madison, Wisconsin newspaper and the Milwaukee Journal.

He then joined the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio for a year, and in 1907 began a nine-year affiliation with the Thomas B. Jeffery Company in Kenosha, Wisconsin, manufacturers of the Rambler and the Jeffery automobile, where he served as secretary and manager of advertising, publicity and sales, and eventually as general manager.

After leaving Cleveland, Jordan came under the employment of John Patterson of National Cash Register Corporation of Dayton, Ohio.

Charlotte Hannahs Jordan's family (The Hannahs Company made children's furniture at 1324-1330 52nd Street) had connections within Kenosha society, and it is believed by Jordan biographer James Lackey that she asked her family to make a contact with Thomas B. Jeffery about securing a position for her husband at Jeffery’s automobile company which produced the Rambler automobile in Kenosha.

While successful, Charles Jeffery decided to leave auto making in 1915, following a harrowing ordeal in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

Jordan also selected a spacious home in East Cleveland, Ohio on Grandview Terrace to which he could retreat when the pressures of running the company became too great.

Jordan bet that in the upper-class car markets, women would be drawn to fine upholstery, richly detailed interiors, as well as a wide array of body types and colors.

Jordan’s style and wording captured the feeling of the restless "lost generation" that F. Scott Fitzgerald would gain fame from writing about.

Appearing in the June, 1923 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, the ad promoted the Jordan Playboy, with art by Fred Cole showing a car driven by a cloche-wearing flapper hunkered down behind the wheel in abstract fashion, racing a cowboy and the clouds.

As the auto company that he built began to strain under the weight of unsold cars, Jordan’s marriage was also heading for divorce.

But the company collapsed in 1931, and after a short stint on Madison Avenue in advertising, Jordan headed for the Caribbean where he descended into alcoholism.