| Arthur W. Perdue | |
| Birth Date: | 8 August 1885[1] |
| Death Date: | [2] |
| Death Place: | Salisbury, Maryland |
Arthur W. Perdue (1885–1977) was an American businessman and the founder of Perdue Farms[3] along with his wife Pearl in 1920.[4] The business was started in his backyard, and at the time only produced table eggs from chickens,[4] but eventually grew into a $4.1 billion company.[5]
In the 1600s, Henri Perdue, a Huguenot, left France for the Province of Maryland to escape religious persecution.[6] Perdue settled in what is now Wicomico and Worcester Counties and his descendants continue to live in the area.[6]
Perdue was born in 1885 as the second of three children to Levin and Martha Perdue in Worcester County.[1] His parents were devout and strict Methodists.[1]
He married Pearl Parsons in 1917 and had one child in 1920, Frank Perdue.[1]
In 1915, Arthur Perdue worked as a Railway Express agent in Salisbury, Maryland.[7] By 1920, Perdue noticed that the chicken farmers on the Delmarva peninsula that were making money had shifted from selling chickens to selling table eggs.[8] Perdue quit his job at the railroad and established his own commercial table-egg farm a few miles east of Salisbury, Maryland.[8]
Perdue began focusing on quality and brought in Leghorn breeding stock from Texas to improve the quality of his flock.[9] He then expanded his egg market, including to New York.[9]
The Arthur W. Perdue Stadium in Salisbury, Maryland, is home to the Delmarva Shorebirds baseball team, a class A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles in the South Atlantic League.[10]
The Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation was established to support the communities where Perdue Farms has facilities.[11]
In 2017, the farmhouse Perdue built in 1917 and lived in was added to the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.[12]