[1] During the Civil War, Widener won a contract to supply mutton to all Union Army troops within 10 miles of Philadelphia.

He and his business partner, William L. Elkins, invested with businessmen such as Charles Tyson Yerkes, the streetcar czar of Chicago.

His grandson, George D. Widener Jr. (1889-1971), a noted horse racing figure, was also the chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

[9] In 1887, Widener built an ornate mansion, designed by Willis G. Hale, in Philadelphia, at the northwest corner of Broad Street and Girard Avenue.

Widener was an avid art collector,[10] with a collection that included more than a dozen paintings by Rembrandt, as well as works by then-new artists Édouard Manet and Auguste Renoir.

[11] Widener's son Joseph donated more than 300 works—including paintings, sculpture, metalwork, stained glass, furniture, rugs, Chinese porcelains, and majolica—to the National Gallery of Art in 1942.