Morgan, J.P.

Morgan, J.P. (1837–1913), banker, financier, and art patron.The son of the international banker Junius Spencer Morgan and his wife Juliet Pierpont, of Hartford, John Pierpont Morgan became America's dominant financier of steel and railroad enterprises. Schooled in Boston, Switzerland, and Germany, he returned to New York in 1857, a year of economic panic. Joining a banking firm representing the London‐based George Peabody and Company, he acted as his father's eyes and ears. In 1861, he married Amelia Sturges, of a Manhattan cotton‐trading family. Soon after her death in 1862 he married Frances Louise Tracy; they had four children.

During the Civil War, Morgan arranged Union loans on the London market, but also resold guns originally bought from the Army, the often‐defective Hall carbines, making a substantial and perhaps unethical profit. Avoiding military service by paying for a substitute (as did many other well‐to‐do young men), Morgan instead sold government bonds and supported charities for war widows and the wounded. He also became a partner in the new banking house of J.S. Morgan and Company, which became Drexel, Morgan in 1871, and J.P. Morgan and Company in 1895.

Coming of age in the era of ruthless capitalist entrepreneurs such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Daniel Drew, Andrew Carnegie, and Jay Gould, Morgan invested heavily in and eventually gained control of Gould's Erie Railroad. He also combined the New York Central and Wabash railroads, and acquired or reorganized the Lehigh Valley and Northern Pacific railroads. In 1895, at a considerable profit, he successfully halted a run on the gold reserves of the U.S. Treasury. Purchasing Carnegie Steel in 1901, he combined it with other holdings to form the United States Steel Corporation, which dominated the industry. During a financial panic in 1907, Morgan led a consortium of New York bankers who ended the crisis by guaranteeing the stability of weaker banks—a demonstration of his dominance over the economy that intensified pressures for reform of the nation's banking system. His vast economic power prompted congressional investigators to call him to testify in 1912 before the Pujo Committee, which investigated the small circle of New York financiers who controlled the nation's banks, corporations, railroads, and stock exchange. Morgan emerged with his prestige intact, his position unchallenged.

A collector even as a boy, Morgan during his many trips to Europe acquired a horde of valuable works. Among the first patrons of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he also supported the American Museum of Natural History. His acquisitions included Chinese porcelains, medieval and Renaissance paintings, and rare books, especially on religion. His treasures became the nucleus of the Morgan Library, housed in his Madison Avenue mansion.

Some of Morgan's contemporaries saw him as ruthless, secretive, and acquisitive to an extreme, taking more from society than he gave. Others viewed him as a major contributor to corporate growth, philanthropy, and American culture. Larger than life, he was simply J.P. Morgan.
See also Banking and Finance; Capitalism; Depressions, Economic; Economic Development; Federal Reserve Act; Gilded Age; Iron and Steel Industry; Museums: Museums of Art; Progressive Era.

Bibliography

Ron Chernow , The House of Morgan, 1990.
Jean Strouse , Morgan: American Financier, 1999.

Leo Hershkowitz