Who co-founded Tiffany & Co. alongside Charles Lewis Tiffany?

John B. Young co-founded Tiffany & Co. alongside Charles Lewis Tiffany. The two partners opened a New York stationery and fancy-goods shop in 1837, using $1,000 borrowed from Charles Tiffany’s father.

The original business was called Tiffany, Young and Ellis after Jabez Lewis Ellis joined the partnership. It sold stationery, glassware, porcelain, cutlery, clocks, and jewelry before Charles Tiffany gradually steered the company toward luxury goods. The name became Tiffany & Company in 1853.

A common mix-up is confusing John B. Young with Louis Comfort Tiffany. Louis Comfort was Charles Tiffany’s son and later became Tiffany’s first official design director, but he was not a co-founder. The similarly named George Tiffany and John A. Young were not the founding partner identified in the company’s history.

Young also became Charles Tiffany’s brother-in-law: Charles married Young’s sister, Harriet Olivia Avery Young, in 1841.