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J. P. Morgan
1837–1913 · 76 years Tier I
Rheumatic fever, a year in the Azores, then Wall Street
The money was already there. His grandfather Joseph, a co-founder of Aetna, died in 1847 and left the family rich, and his father Junius went from the largest dry goods house in Hartford into merchant banking in London. Pierpont, as he preferred to be called, passed the entrance exam for the English High School of Boston in September 1851 to study the mathematics of commerce. Six months later rheumatic fever nearly killed him, and he spent close to a year convalescing in the Azores. He came back, was sent to a Swiss school for the French and then to Göttingen for the German, and took a degree in art history there in six months. In August 1857 he went to London to work for his father.
What he assembled between 1871 and 1913 is easier to list than to describe: General Electric, U.S. Steel, International Harvester, American Bridge, the Southern Railway, International Mercantile Marine, and 21 railroads reorganized into solvency on his terms. Twice he lent the United States government money it could not otherwise raise, once in gold in 1895. In December 1912 he sat in front of the Pujo Committee and was asked whether he disliked competition. BriefHistory tells that story and what the concentration of it meant. What is left over is the man who did it.
He married Amelia Sturges in October 1861 knowing she had tuberculosis and had to carry her into the drawing room for the ceremony. They sailed for Algiers for the climate. She died at Nice four months and ten days after the wedding. That same year he paid a substitute 300 dollars to serve in his place in the Civil War, and lent 20,000 dollars to a middleman who bought 5,000 army carbines cheap and resold them to General Frémont at 22 dollars each. Whether he knew what the money was doing is still argued. Carosso and Wasson found no evidence that he did, Josephson and Morris found it implausible that he did not. In middle age rhinophyma left his nose swollen and purple. Every professional portrait of him was retouched, and he once swung his cane at a photographer.
He died in his sleep at the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome on March 31, 1913. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two hours as his body passed through the city, an honor usually reserved for heads of state. The estate came to 68.3 million dollars, with the art alone valued at 50 million. In 1933 the Glass-Steagall Act broke the house into three pieces: J.P. Morgan & Co., Morgan Stanley, and Morgan Grenfell in London. His son made the library on 36th Street a public institution in 1924 and installed as its first director Belle da Costa Greene, his father's longtime librarian, who was born to Black parents and spent her entire professional life passing as white.
Lifespan
J. P. Morgan's life against the full span of the corpus.
Notable works
-
General Electric
company
Assembled out of the Edison and Thomson-Houston companies 1892 -
J.P. Morgan & Co.
company
The most powerful private financial house in the world 1895 -
U.S. Steel
company
The first billion-dollar corporation 1901 -
International Mercantile Marine
company
The shipping trust that owned the White Star Line and the Titanic 1902 -
The Pierpont Morgan Library
building
Made a public institution by his son in 1924 1906 -
The North American Indian
book
He put 75,000 dollars behind Edward S. Curtis and got 20 volumes 1906
Life in brief
with age at each point- April 1852 aged 14 Rheumatic fever nearly kills him and he is sent to the Azores He convalesced there for almost a year before returning to school in Boston.
- August 1857 aged 20 Goes to London to work for his father at George Peabody & Co.
- October 1861 aged 24 Marries Amelia Sturges, already seriously ill with tuberculosis He carried her to the ceremony. She died at Nice the following February.
- May 31, 1865 aged 28 Marries Frances Louisa Tracy They had four children, including his successor Jack.
- 1895 aged ~58 Lends gold to a U.S. Treasury that cannot raise it any other way Critics never let go of the terms.
- 1901 aged ~64 Finances U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation
- November 7, 1907 aged 70 The Panic of 1907 ends He was 70, and the episode became the argument for a central bank.
- April 1912 aged 74 The Titanic sinks, having sailed without him He had booked a suite with a private promenade deck and changed his plans.
- March 31, 1913 aged 75 Dies in Rome Wall Street flew its flags at half-staff and the exchange closed for two hours.
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