Portrait of William H. Webb

Birthday profile

William H. Webb

William H. Webb, American shipbuilder and philanthropist, founded the Webb Institute (died 1899)

Born
June 19, 1816
Died
October 30, 1899
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1816

About William H. Webb

William Henry Webb was a 19th-century New York City shipbuilder and philanthropist, who has been called America's first true naval architect. William Henry Webb (June 19, 1816 – October 30, 1899) was a 19th-century New York City shipbuilder and philanthropist, who has been called America's first true naval architect. Upon examining the accounts, William discovered that his father's business was technically insolvent, and thus one of his first duties was to settle his father's debts. At twenty, he was awarded a subcontract for the New York-Liverpool packet ship Oxford, his first commercial contract.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when William H. Webb was born

William H. Webb was born in 1816. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1816

  • Best-selling bookFrankenstein conceived during gloomy summer

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineYear Without a Summer — crop failures worldwide
  • Technology milestoneStethoscope invented by René Laennec
  • World population~980M

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJames Madison
  • U.S. population8.5M

1816 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William H. Webb's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18162026
Population8.5M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.