Robert T. Stevens had a fifty-year career with J. P. Stevens & Company—named after New York-based John Peter Stevens who made his fortune by selling the products of his grandfather's Massachusetts-based family business which dated back to the War of 1812. Under John Peter Stevens it became one of the largest textile companies in the United States with mills in the North and South. By the age of thirty Robert T. Stevens was president of the company. During his tenure it was "one of the world's largest, most diversified textile organizations." He left Stevens for two-years to serve as Secretary of the Army and by July 1955 he returned to Stevens where he remained until his retirement. He became director emeritus in 1974.