Pritzker family

The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in entrepreneurship 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 arose in the 20th century, particularly through the founding and expansion of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

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] Their holdings also have included the Superior Bank of Chicago (which collapsed in 2001), the TransUnion credit bureau, Braniff airlines, McCall's magazine, and the Royal Caribbean cruise line.^[2]

The Pritzker family is of Jewish descent^[3] and based in Chicago, Illinois.^[4] The founder of the American Pritzker family, Yakov (Jacob) Pritzker (1831–1896), was the manager of a sugar factory in Kyiv Governorate, on the territory of modern Ukraine. At first he lived with his family in the village of Velyki Pritzky, then in Kyiv. At the end of the 19th century, escaping from Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, he emigrated to the USA with his family.^[5][6]