Morgan: American Financier
by Jean Strouse
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.1092
EAN: 9780060955892
ISBN: 0060955899
Label: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 848
Publication Date: 2000-04-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 2000-03-22
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Summary: Big Bad John
Comment: Big Bad John
In the months following the year he turned 69
The banking system cracked and men started cryin'
Bankers were prayin' and hearts beat fast
And everybody thought that they'd loaned their last--`cept John
Through the financial panic of this man-made hell
Walked a giant of a man that the bankers knew well
Grabbed a saggin' trust, gave out with a groan
And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone--Big John
And with all his strength he gave a mighty shove
Then a banker yelled out, "There's a light up above!"
And seventy banks scrambled from a would-be grave
Now there's only one left down there to save--Big John
With apologies to Jimmy Dean and Dean and Roy Acuff, this song sprang to mind while I was reading how in 1907 and for the second time in his life, this time at the advanced age of 70, John Pierpont (J. P.) Morgan once again took the entire American financial system upon his back and carried it to safety. His reward for this sterling service? To be accused of having caused the panic himself in order to profit from it and to be hounded into the grave a few years later by a hostile Congress.
At almost 800 pages Jean Strouse has produced an exhaustive and exhausting biography of this extraordinary financier, in part no doubt to answer the inevitable questions of her political fellow travelers who must be astonished that one of their own could find anything good to say about the devil incarnate. However, as Ms. Strouse conclusively proves with her ocean of ink, while it is possible to disagree with J. P. Morgan over this decision or that position, it is just not possible to despise him if you honestly examine the facts.
He was far from perfect, but thanks to a lifelong paternal moral education relentlessly pounded into his skull and what appears to have been remarkably devout Christian beliefs, he was a lot better than he could have been. On two separate occasions when he would have been well justified in thinking, "My country be damned!" and retiring to Europe with what would still have been a vast fortune, he instead chose to try and rally financial support and lead the leaderless into saving America's financial system from collapse.
He backed Thomas Edison in the invention of the light bulb all through the difficult early years (including the setting of his own house on fire during one early wiring mishap) until electric lights came on and stayed on. He followed a management philosophy of selecting people based on merit, regardless of anything else, and he gave away huge sums of money and enormously valuable collections of art.
Even his most controversial policy, "Morganization", the consolidation of warring competitors (usually railroads) into larger combinations content to compete more peacefully and earn a steady profit cannot be as easily dismissed as this champion of unfettered competition at least once thought. Due to their enormous fixed costs, several orders of magnitude greater size, necessity for constructing expensive track in order to enter a market, and at the time mostly debt rather than equity financing (dividends are payable only when there are profits but interest on bonds is due regardless), railroads were peculiarly susceptible to the perils of cutthroat competition, and since a railroad in receivership could suspend paying interest and thus more easily undersell its solvent rivals, bankruptcy was perversely a competitive advantage.
The resulting continual price wars and bankruptcies benefitted shippers like farmers at least in the short run at the expense of investors who regularly received pennies on the dollar, but anyone with any sense could see that in the long run this was no way to run a railroad. Morgan's solution resulted in higher shipping rates but also more solvent railroads that could afford to spend money on improvements like increased safety AND pay back investors. What's more, unlike government's hypocritically identical response of imposing fixed rates themselves, these were private agreements that could be abolished whenever any of the rivals chose to do so, and they usually chose to do so so quickly as to land themselves right back into bankruptcy again, forcing J. P. to "Morganize" them again. Since Morganizations proved to be very much less successful (read less profitable) outside the railroad industry, they can perhaps best be categorized as an unorthodox but arguably necessary response to a particularly unworkable competitive model, since eliminated by changes in corporate financing and technology (ships, trucks, and planes don't need expensive tracks). At the very least "Morganization" cannot honestly be dismissed as a scheme to gouge consumers.
Defects? Well, when the subject is not J. P. Morgan who has clearly won her over, Ms. Strouse occasionally lets her politics lead her astray. Too often she falls hook, line, and sinker for the same sorts of lies and propaganda about OTHER so-called "robber barons" that she disproves so thoroughly regarding J. P. (Clearly she would have benefitted greatly from reading The Myth of the Robber Barons, which makes the important distinction between political entrepreneurs who were every bit the crooks she thinks them to be and market entrepreneurs, like Commodore Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller, who made their fortunes by fighting the crooks and providing a better product at a more affordable price.)
In addition she includes a couple of chapters whose only justification is political correctness. (One a bit too approvingly details the apparent lesbian seduction of one of JP's daughters by an older woman, and the other a bit too approvingly passes on the lifetime of deceptions by JP's personal librarian because her lies began with being an African-American light enough skinned to pass for white.) I also regard Ms. Strouse's attempt to blame the rampant racism of late 19th Century America on the REPUBLICAN Party to be either the product of dishonesty or delusion. Suffice it to say that most of the people in those days who dressed up in white sheets in order to terrorize black people voted for the OTHER political party!
Finally her premise that the financial system had grown too large for one private individual however wealthy to rescue must be regarded as unproven because (a) in neither of his two rescues, especially the latter, did Morgan act alone anyway and (b) the record of the Federal Reserve in managing subsequent financial crises has been decidedly more mixed than Morgan's record.
Still, these minor critiques aside, Ms. Strouse has produced a remarkably well balanced portrait of a man we would do well to remember more accurately than we do.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Details, Details, Details
Comment: "Morgan: American Financier" is the most thorough biography I have ever read. The book also does a good job of giving the reader a sense of the times that Morgan lived in.
Jean Strouse's enthusiasm for her subject is incredible. The level of detail that she was able to supply in many instances goes far beyond the normal biography. After awhile I became numb to some of these details. I didn't care how many shares were exchanged to take control of another company or how the shares were split up between financing partners.
There were other times when the author's enthusiasm might have been better served had it been reigned in a little bit. For instance, she spent three pages on Morgan's librarian's father, who never met or had anything to do with Morgan. Yes, that's right...his librarian's father was worth three pages of coverage. But that's just me nitpicking because I got tired of sifting through digressions like this.
Overall I believe "Morgan: American Financier" to be a very well done biography that presents an even-handed treatment of the life of J. Pierpont Morgan.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A ponderous biography
Comment: This biography of J.P. Morgan is a yawner. Wading through this book lets you know about Morgan but you never get to know the man.
Strouse goes into mind numbing detail on his art collection and mistesses while lightly touching on his financial deals. She follows tangents to the point of losing the reader. At times it felt as though she just strung all her notes together to make this book.
The very rare nuggets to the understanding of Morgan are not worth the time or money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The definitive biography of JP Morgan: ambitious son, banker, titan, soul of American finance.
Comment: Jean Strouse tries to get beyond the myths, both positive and negative, and show us the living breathing man that was J.P. Morgan and she does a remarkable job. Strouse is the kind of biographer who immerses herself fully in her subject when she writes a book and her commitment to the project is legendary at The Morgan Library where Strouse toiled in the archives for years. Her research shows; "Morgan: American Financier" is authoritative and deep. Strouse shows takes inside Morgan's family and personal life as well as deep into his business dealings. We get the full sweep of his professional and personal power; his personal challenges, demons, principles, and pleasures.
Morgan was a man who was larger than life in his own time. He was the consummate guardian of the "Gentleman Banker's Code" - a Victorian notion of serving the greater good through serving the client that formed the heart of the finance culture - with some Protestant spiritual overtones thrown in. Morgan's bank, with its twin loci on either side of the Atlantic, sat astride the flow of capital between England and the US. In the 19th Century English capital investment was vital for American industrial development and Morgan helped tame the destructive competitive business practices displayed in the railroad wars where rival rail lines would squander millions building parasitic parallel lines in an effort to drive the competition out of business. Morgan learned the lesson that cutthroat competition was wasteful of investor's capital and he ever after strove to build peaceful vast monopolies. This kind of business value system seems at odds with our current notion of free market capitalism it certainly wasn't very popular with labor or with those who feared the power of vast trusts. Vast trusts were Morgan's specialty. He personally assembled the first billion dollar stock offering in knitting together the vast majority of US steel production into US Steel. He set up a host of other vast monopolistic conglomerates including General Electric, International Telephone & Telegraph, International Harvester, International Mercantile Marine, and a host of railroad accumulations (just to mention the highlights). In defending foreign investment interests he defended the dollar's value on the International market by defending the gold standard - putting him at odds with bimetallism and William Jennings Bryan. In the East Room of his fabulous 36th St. Library there is a huge 16th century tapestry representing the sin of greed. Morgan clearly thought of himself as a force for moral order among robber baron thieves. When JP Morgan died he left less than $120 million - a figure that shocked many people who had figured he was worth far more. Morgan assembled vast economic power through board voting proxies with the goal of orchestrating a smoother running economy for the profit of his clients. While Morgan did good business on legitimate business, he didn't skim or abuse his position (granted "insider trading" wasn't considered a sin in those days - if it was done discretely). JP Morgan died in 1913 a year after the Titanic (which was built by IMM - his new shipping trust; thus stressing Morgan doubly because he had friends who died on board and the disaster stood to devastate the bottom line of a huge project/client of his) and the Pujo hearings where Morgan was grilled for his role in resolving the Panic of '07 which involved a massive hat trick of capital and political manipulation that featured putting Teddy Roosevelt over a barrel and forcing him to approve a critical bit of monopolistic corporate takeover business for the US Steel concern, staunching a run on the banks, and bailing out a bankrupt New York City government - all in the same month! That kind of power scared the heck out of many and spurred the establishment of the Federal Reserve.
Much of this ground had been covered back in 1990 with Ron Chernow's superb "The House of Morgan". What sets Strouse's book apart is the story of Morgan's personal and emotional life and how she weaves the business story into context with Morgan's private life. JP Morgan was a dynamo riven by contradictions. Notoriously intense - Edward Steichen, the photographer - after taking Morgan's portrait, said that "meeting Morgan's gaze was like confronting the headlights of an express train". He was also a portly man whose nose was horribly deformed due to a disease called rhinophyma. That didn't stop Morgan from having numerous flirtations and affairs and a vibrant public social life. JP Morgan was a man dominated by a stern and judging father, Junius, who dictated JP Morgan's life until Morgan was fully an adult and in charge of the banking empire. For example, Morgan fell in love with Amelia Sturges ("Mimi") and married her despite the fact that she was dying of tuberculosis and wasn't a strategic match. She died on their honeymoon, emotionally devastating JP. Junius stepped in and selected JP's next wife, Frances Louisa Tracy, "Fanny" - based on sound socio-economic factors. Fanny was shy, staid, and retiring; a poor match to JP's fiery extroverted nature. Over time they ended up living entirely apart - each one spending half the year on the opposite side of the Atlantic from the other. Morgan frequently traveled with other women - chaperoned by his daughter Louisa. But Morgan was also devoutly religious and was very active in his church's management and fiscal affairs. He was involved with selection of the pastor - a man who became one of Morgan's closest lifelong friends. Morgan's ferocious business pace drove many of his partners to work to death. Morgan found solace and refuge in yachting and his yachts are legendary (one was fitted with cannon and depth charge launchers and used for U-boat hunting in WWI by the US Navy).
But Morgan's greatest love was art. At the time of his death, fully half of his vast fortune was reckoned to be in his art collection. Many consider it to have been the finest art collection ever assembled. During Morgan's lifetime, much of that art remained in his London mansion. After his death, sadly, his son Jack couldn't keep it together for perpetuity because of economic and political reasons. Morgan's first artistic passion was books. The books he brought to New York and later in his life he commissioned probably the world's most impressive private library - now known as The Morgan Library & Museum. He hired the voluble, coquettish, and brilliant Belle DaCosta Greene in 1905 to be the Library's first director and curator. Belle Greene is a fascinating character in her own right - receiving a good introduction here (and warranting her own extensive biography "An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege" by Heidi Ardizzone). The Library became Morgan's business office in his later years and the banking community nicknamed it "the uptown branch". Much of Morgan's later history - including his artful handling of the Panic of '07 - happened there. Morgan's art collecting transcended personal pleasure. Like his professional life he was clearly trying to lead and shape the United States. In amassing such important cultural holdings he was attempting to raise America closer to his beloved England's cultural stature.
Comprehensive, personal, meticulously researched and annotated; Jean Strouse has written the definitive biography of an epic life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Money Man
Comment: A good history of not only the man, also of american politics and finance.
The real workings between BIG Business and the men who created them
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Big Bad John
Comment: Big Bad John
In the months following the year he turned 69
The banking system cracked and men started cryin'
Bankers were prayin' and hearts beat fast
And everybody thought that they'd loaned their last--`cept John
Through the financial panic of this man-made hell
Walked a giant of a man that the bankers knew well
Grabbed a saggin' trust, gave out with a groan
And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone--Big John
And with all his strength he gave a mighty shove
Then a banker yelled out, "There's a light up above!"
And seventy banks scrambled from a would-be grave
Now there's only one left down there to save--Big John
With apologies to Jimmy Dean and Dean and Roy Acuff, this song sprang to mind while I was reading how in 1907 and for the second time in his life, this time at the advanced age of 70, John Pierpont (J. P.) Morgan once again took the entire American financial system upon his back and carried it to safety. His reward for this sterling service? To be accused of having caused the panic himself in order to profit from it and to be hounded into the grave a few years later by a hostile Congress.
At almost 800 pages Jean Strouse has produced an exhaustive and exhausting biography of this extraordinary financier, in part no doubt to answer the inevitable questions of her political fellow travelers who must be astonished that one of their own could find anything good to say about the devil incarnate. However, as Ms. Strouse conclusively proves with her ocean of ink, while it is possible to disagree with J. P. Morgan over this decision or that position, it is just not possible to despise him if you honestly examine the facts.
He was far from perfect, but thanks to a lifelong paternal moral education relentlessly pounded into his skull and what appears to have been remarkably devout Christian beliefs, he was a lot better than he could have been. On two separate occasions when he would have been well justified in thinking, "My country be damned!" and retiring to Europe with what would still have been a vast fortune, he instead chose to try and rally financial support and lead the leaderless into saving America's financial system from collapse.
He backed Thomas Edison in the invention of the light bulb all through the difficult early years (including the setting of his own house on fire during one early wiring mishap) until electric lights came on and stayed on. He followed a management philosophy of selecting people based on merit, regardless of anything else, and he gave away huge sums of money and enormously valuable collections of art.
Even his most controversial policy, "Morganization", the consolidation of warring competitors (usually railroads) into larger combinations content to compete more peacefully and earn a steady profit cannot be as easily dismissed as this champion of unfettered competition at least once thought. Due to their enormous fixed costs, several orders of magnitude greater size, necessity for constructing expensive track in order to enter a market, and at the time mostly debt rather than equity financing (dividends are payable only when there are profits but interest on bonds is due regardless), railroads were peculiarly susceptible to the perils of cutthroat competition, and since a railroad in receivership could suspend paying interest and thus more easily undersell its solvent rivals, bankruptcy was perversely a competitive advantage.
The resulting continual price wars and bankruptcies benefitted shippers like farmers at least in the short run at the expense of investors who regularly received pennies on the dollar, but anyone with any sense could see that in the long run this was no way to run a railroad. Morgan's solution resulted in higher shipping rates but also more solvent railroads that could afford to spend money on improvements like increased safety AND pay back investors. What's more, unlike government's hypocritically identical response of imposing fixed rates themselves, these were private agreements that could be abolished whenever any of the rivals chose to do so, and they usually chose to do so so quickly as to land themselves right back into bankruptcy again, forcing J. P. to "Morganize" them again. Since Morganizations proved to be very much less successful (read less profitable) outside the railroad industry, they can perhaps best be categorized as an unorthodox but arguably necessary response to a particularly unworkable competitive model, since eliminated by changes in corporate financing and technology (ships, trucks, and planes don't need expensive tracks). At the very least "Morganization" cannot honestly be dismissed as a scheme to gouge consumers.
Defects? Well, when the subject is not J. P. Morgan who has clearly won her over, Ms. Strouse occasionally lets her politics lead her astray. Too often she falls hook, line, and sinker for the same sorts of lies and propaganda about OTHER so-called "robber barons" that she disproves so thoroughly regarding J. P. (Clearly she would have benefitted greatly from reading The Myth of the Robber Barons, which makes the important distinction between political entrepreneurs who were every bit the crooks she thinks them to be and market entrepreneurs, like Commodore Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller, who made their fortunes by fighting the crooks and providing a better product at a more affordable price.)
In addition she includes a couple of chapters whose only justification is political correctness. (One a bit too approvingly details the apparent lesbian seduction of one of JP's daughters by an older woman, and the other a bit too approvingly passes on the lifetime of deceptions by JP's personal librarian because her lies began with being an African-American light enough skinned to pass for white.) I also regard Ms. Strouse's attempt to blame the rampant racism of late 19th Century America on the REPUBLICAN Party to be either the product of dishonesty or delusion. Suffice it to say that most of the people in those days who dressed up in white sheets in order to terrorize black people voted for the OTHER political party!
Finally her premise that the financial system had grown too large for one private individual however wealthy to rescue must be regarded as unproven because (a) in neither of his two rescues, especially the latter, did Morgan act alone anyway and (b) the record of the Federal Reserve in managing subsequent financial crises has been decidedly more mixed than Morgan's record.
Still, these minor critiques aside, Ms. Strouse has produced a remarkably well balanced portrait of a man we would do well to remember more accurately than we do.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Details, Details, Details
Comment: "Morgan: American Financier" is the most thorough biography I have ever read. The book also does a good job of giving the reader a sense of the times that Morgan lived in.
Jean Strouse's enthusiasm for her subject is incredible. The level of detail that she was able to supply in many instances goes far beyond the normal biography. After awhile I became numb to some of these details. I didn't care how many shares were exchanged to take control of another company or how the shares were split up between financing partners.
There were other times when the author's enthusiasm might have been better served had it been reigned in a little bit. For instance, she spent three pages on Morgan's librarian's father, who never met or had anything to do with Morgan. Yes, that's right...his librarian's father was worth three pages of coverage. But that's just me nitpicking because I got tired of sifting through digressions like this.
Overall I believe "Morgan: American Financier" to be a very well done biography that presents an even-handed treatment of the life of J. Pierpont Morgan.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A ponderous biography
Comment: This biography of J.P. Morgan is a yawner. Wading through this book lets you know about Morgan but you never get to know the man.
Strouse goes into mind numbing detail on his art collection and mistesses while lightly touching on his financial deals. She follows tangents to the point of losing the reader. At times it felt as though she just strung all her notes together to make this book.
The very rare nuggets to the understanding of Morgan are not worth the time or money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The definitive biography of JP Morgan: ambitious son, banker, titan, soul of American finance.
Comment: Jean Strouse tries to get beyond the myths, both positive and negative, and show us the living breathing man that was J.P. Morgan and she does a remarkable job. Strouse is the kind of biographer who immerses herself fully in her subject when she writes a book and her commitment to the project is legendary at The Morgan Library where Strouse toiled in the archives for years. Her research shows; "Morgan: American Financier" is authoritative and deep. Strouse shows takes inside Morgan's family and personal life as well as deep into his business dealings. We get the full sweep of his professional and personal power; his personal challenges, demons, principles, and pleasures.
Morgan was a man who was larger than life in his own time. He was the consummate guardian of the "Gentleman Banker's Code" - a Victorian notion of serving the greater good through serving the client that formed the heart of the finance culture - with some Protestant spiritual overtones thrown in. Morgan's bank, with its twin loci on either side of the Atlantic, sat astride the flow of capital between England and the US. In the 19th Century English capital investment was vital for American industrial development and Morgan helped tame the destructive competitive business practices displayed in the railroad wars where rival rail lines would squander millions building parasitic parallel lines in an effort to drive the competition out of business. Morgan learned the lesson that cutthroat competition was wasteful of investor's capital and he ever after strove to build peaceful vast monopolies. This kind of business value system seems at odds with our current notion of free market capitalism it certainly wasn't very popular with labor or with those who feared the power of vast trusts. Vast trusts were Morgan's specialty. He personally assembled the first billion dollar stock offering in knitting together the vast majority of US steel production into US Steel. He set up a host of other vast monopolistic conglomerates including General Electric, International Telephone & Telegraph, International Harvester, International Mercantile Marine, and a host of railroad accumulations (just to mention the highlights). In defending foreign investment interests he defended the dollar's value on the International market by defending the gold standard - putting him at odds with bimetallism and William Jennings Bryan. In the East Room of his fabulous 36th St. Library there is a huge 16th century tapestry representing the sin of greed. Morgan clearly thought of himself as a force for moral order among robber baron thieves. When JP Morgan died he left less than $120 million - a figure that shocked many people who had figured he was worth far more. Morgan assembled vast economic power through board voting proxies with the goal of orchestrating a smoother running economy for the profit of his clients. While Morgan did good business on legitimate business, he didn't skim or abuse his position (granted "insider trading" wasn't considered a sin in those days - if it was done discretely). JP Morgan died in 1913 a year after the Titanic (which was built by IMM - his new shipping trust; thus stressing Morgan doubly because he had friends who died on board and the disaster stood to devastate the bottom line of a huge project/client of his) and the Pujo hearings where Morgan was grilled for his role in resolving the Panic of '07 which involved a massive hat trick of capital and political manipulation that featured putting Teddy Roosevelt over a barrel and forcing him to approve a critical bit of monopolistic corporate takeover business for the US Steel concern, staunching a run on the banks, and bailing out a bankrupt New York City government - all in the same month! That kind of power scared the heck out of many and spurred the establishment of the Federal Reserve.
Much of this ground had been covered back in 1990 with Ron Chernow's superb "The House of Morgan". What sets Strouse's book apart is the story of Morgan's personal and emotional life and how she weaves the business story into context with Morgan's private life. JP Morgan was a dynamo riven by contradictions. Notoriously intense - Edward Steichen, the photographer - after taking Morgan's portrait, said that "meeting Morgan's gaze was like confronting the headlights of an express train". He was also a portly man whose nose was horribly deformed due to a disease called rhinophyma. That didn't stop Morgan from having numerous flirtations and affairs and a vibrant public social life. JP Morgan was a man dominated by a stern and judging father, Junius, who dictated JP Morgan's life until Morgan was fully an adult and in charge of the banking empire. For example, Morgan fell in love with Amelia Sturges ("Mimi") and married her despite the fact that she was dying of tuberculosis and wasn't a strategic match. She died on their honeymoon, emotionally devastating JP. Junius stepped in and selected JP's next wife, Frances Louisa Tracy, "Fanny" - based on sound socio-economic factors. Fanny was shy, staid, and retiring; a poor match to JP's fiery extroverted nature. Over time they ended up living entirely apart - each one spending half the year on the opposite side of the Atlantic from the other. Morgan frequently traveled with other women - chaperoned by his daughter Louisa. But Morgan was also devoutly religious and was very active in his church's management and fiscal affairs. He was involved with selection of the pastor - a man who became one of Morgan's closest lifelong friends. Morgan's ferocious business pace drove many of his partners to work to death. Morgan found solace and refuge in yachting and his yachts are legendary (one was fitted with cannon and depth charge launchers and used for U-boat hunting in WWI by the US Navy).
But Morgan's greatest love was art. At the time of his death, fully half of his vast fortune was reckoned to be in his art collection. Many consider it to have been the finest art collection ever assembled. During Morgan's lifetime, much of that art remained in his London mansion. After his death, sadly, his son Jack couldn't keep it together for perpetuity because of economic and political reasons. Morgan's first artistic passion was books. The books he brought to New York and later in his life he commissioned probably the world's most impressive private library - now known as The Morgan Library & Museum. He hired the voluble, coquettish, and brilliant Belle DaCosta Greene in 1905 to be the Library's first director and curator. Belle Greene is a fascinating character in her own right - receiving a good introduction here (and warranting her own extensive biography "An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege" by Heidi Ardizzone). The Library became Morgan's business office in his later years and the banking community nicknamed it "the uptown branch". Much of Morgan's later history - including his artful handling of the Panic of '07 - happened there. Morgan's art collecting transcended personal pleasure. Like his professional life he was clearly trying to lead and shape the United States. In amassing such important cultural holdings he was attempting to raise America closer to his beloved England's cultural stature.
Comprehensive, personal, meticulously researched and annotated; Jean Strouse has written the definitive biography of an epic life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Money Man
Comment: A good history of not only the man, also of american politics and finance.
The real workings between BIG Business and the men who created them
History has remembered J. Pierpont Morgan as a complex and contradictory figure, part robber baron and part patron saint. Now this magisterial biography, based extensively on new material, draws a definitive, full-scale portrait of Morgan's tumultuous life both in and out of the public eye.Morgan earned his reputation as "the Napoleon of Wall Street" by reorganizing the nation's railroads and creating some of its greatest industrial trusts, including General Electric and U.S. Steel. At a time when the United States had no Federal Reserve System, he appointed himself a one-man central bank. He had two wives, three yachts, four children, six houses, mistresses, and one of the finest art collections in America. In this extraordinary book, award-winning biographer Jean Strouse vividly portrays the financial colossus, the avid patron of the arts, and the entirely human character behind all the myths. Brilliantly crafted, epic in scope, Morgan reveals a man we have never seen before, offering new insights on the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of America's Gilded Age.
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