In 1891 his father, Meyer Guggenheim (Guggenheim, Meyer), consolidated about a dozen of the family's mining operations into a trust known as the Colorado Smelting and Refining Company. The trust acquired control of the American Smelting and Refining Company in 1901 and became the dominant force in the mining industry for the next three decades. Directing the trust until 1919 and exercising a dominant influence on it in the 1920s, Daniel Guggenheim expanded the family interests to include mines producing tin in Bolivia, gold in Alaska, copper in Utah, and diamonds in Africa, as well as nitrate fields in Chile and rubber plantations in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His most notable philanthropies were the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation and the Daniel Guggenheim Foundation for the Promotion of Aeronautics.