Pritzker family

The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in various business enterprises and philanthropy, and one of the wealthiest families in the United States (staying in the top 10 of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982). Its fortune started in the 20th century, particularly through the founding and expansion of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which was founded by Jay Pritzker and also involved his brother Donald Pritzker.

Family members still largely own Hyatt and prior to its sale to Berkshire Hathaway, the Marmon Group, a conglomerate of manufacturing and industrial service companies.^[1] They have also had holdings in the Superior Bank of Chicago (which collapsed in 2001), the TransUnion credit bureau, Braniff airlines, McCall's magazine, and the Royal Caribbean International cruise line.^[2]

The Pritzker family is of Jewish descent^[3] and based in Chicago.^[4] Yakov "Jacob" Pritzker (1831–1896), was the manager of a sugar factory in Kyiv Governorate in the territory of modern Ukraine. At first he lived with his family in the village of Velyki Pritzky, then in Kyiv. He and his family immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire towards the end of the 19th century, to escape the pogroms there.^[5][6]

In 1995, Jay Pritzker, the co-founder of Hyatt,^{[clarification needed]} stepped down and Thomas Pritzker took control of The Pritzker Organization.^[4] When Jay died in 1999, the family split the business into 11 pieces worth $1.4 billion each^[4] (choosing to settle a lawsuit from two family members, who apparently received $500 million each in 2005).^[7][8][9] By 2011, the dissolution had been completed and the cousins had gone their separate ways, with some pursuing business and others philanthropic or artistic ventures.^[10] According to Inside Philanthropy, many Pritzkers have numerous vehicles or foundations for giving philanthropically.^[11]

Members of the Pritzker family on the Forbes The World's Billionaires List of "the richest people in the world" in 2024:^[16]

• A.N. Pritzker Elementary School
• Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Chicago's Millennium Park
• Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building at the University of California, San Francisco^[17]
• Pritzker Architecture Prize
• Pritzker Family Children's Zoo at the Lincoln Park Zoo
• Pritzker College Prep, a Campus of the Noble Network of Charter High Schools
• Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology
• Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University
  • Pritzker Legal Research Center at Northwestern
• Pritzker Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles
• Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago (UChicago)
• Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago
• Pritzker Marine Biological Research Center at New College of Florida
• Pritzker Galleries of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Pritzker Traubert Family Library at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
• The Pritzker Organization
• Pritzker Edition of Zohar (the Book of Radiance), translation & commentary by Daniel Matt and, for last 3 volumes, Nathan Wolski and Joel Hecker; 12 vols, Stanford University Press, 1997–2017
• Pritzker Military Museum and Library-cited earlier in this article.
• Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies in the Field Museum of Natural History
• Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in the Lurie Children's Hospital

• The Pritzker Estate
• List of largest houses in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
• List of largest houses in the United States