Charles B. Whitnall was a florist and banker, who became the first Socialist

Socialist Party of America

The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...

 city treasurer

Treasurer

A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...

 of the city of Milwaukee and the architect of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin's renowned system of public parks. (He served as Secretary of the Milwaukee County Park Commission from its inception in 1907 until his retirement in 1941.)

Background

Charles B. Whitnall was born in Milwaukee on January 21, 1859, the son of a florist. He went into and eventually took over his father’s business, and became active in the floral industry

Floral industry

The floral industry is one of the major industries in many developing and underdeveloped countries. Floriculture as an industry began in the late 19th century in England, where flowers were grown on a large scale on the vast estates. The present day floral industry is a dynamic, global,...

. He helped organize a National Association of Florists and started the Florist Telegraph Delivery System

Florists' Transworld Delivery

-Going public:In 1994, FTD began a process of demutualization.On December 19, 1994, a precursor to the FTD Corporation, a private, for-profit company, acquired FTD, which then divided FTD into two organizations: FTD Incorporated, a for profit corporation, and FTD Association, a non-profit trade...

 (FTD

FTD

FTD may refer to:* Field test display, a software application on mobile phones* Financial Times Deutschland, a German language financial newspaper based in Hamburg, Germany, published by Gruner + Jahr...

) as a retailers' cooperative

Retailers' cooperative

A retailers' cooperative is a type of cooperative which employs economies of scale on behalf of its retailer members. Retailers' cooperatives use their purchasing power to acquire discounts from manufacturers and often share marketing expenses. It is common for locally owned grocery stores,...

.