He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and spent two years at Yale University before returning to his father's construction company in 1911.
[citation needed] Talbott's father was a wealthy engineer who was involved in the construction of the Soo Locks on Lake Superior and had various railroad and paper milling interests.
[2] His brother Nelson "Bud" Talbott was the coach for the Dayton Triangles professional football team, a predecessor to today's Indianapolis Colts.
In July 1962 his widow (Margaret Thayer) committed suicide by jumping from the 12th story of their Fifth Avenue apartment in New York City.
[3] During World War II, the Runnymede Playhouse on the Talbott family estate in a residential neighborhood of Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton), hosted the Dayton Project (the part of the Manhattan Project involved in creating the neutron-generating triggers for the first atomic bombs from radioactive polonium).
Charles Allen Thomas, a Delco-GM and Monsanto Company chemist who was in charge of the project, was married to Harold's sister Margaret.
In October 1918 Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory reported to President Wilson on the results of an investigation into wartime aircraft production.
Hughes specifically mentioned improper communications between Deeds and Harold Talbott about matters affecting aircraft procurement.
In 1922 GM established the Inland Manufacturing Division to build wooden steering wheels at the former Dayton-Wright plant.
He became the third Secretary of the Air Force on February 4, 1953, during a period when the Korean War had jolted Congress into authorizing additional wings and their supporting infrastructure.
Combining better housing with pay increases and other needed improvements, he raised the service personnel retention rate by linking enhanced military benefits to reenlistment.
During his tenure, Talbott appointed a commission to assist him in selecting the permanent site for the Air Force Academy.