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A century ago, J. Pierpont Morgan bestrode the financial world like a colossus. The organizing force behind General Electric, U.S. Steel, and vast railroad empires, he served for decades as America's unofficial central banker: a few months after he died in 1913, the Federal Reserve replaced the private system he had devised.
An early supporter of Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, the confidant (and rival) of Theodore Roosevelt, England's Edward VII, and Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm, and the companion of several fascinating women, Morgan shaped his world and ours in countless ways. Yet since his death he has remained a mysterious figure, celebrated as a hero of industrial progress and vilified as a rapacious robber baron.
In this account, drawn from more than a decade's work in newly available archives, biographer Jean Strouse animates Morgan's life and times to reveal the entirely human character behind the often terrifying visage.
Morgan brings eye-opening perspectives to the role the banker played in the emerging U.S. economy as he raised capital in Europe, reorganized bankrupt railroads, stabilized markets in times of crisis, and set up many of the corporate and financial structures we take for granted.
And surprising new stories introduce us in vivid detail to Morgan's childhood in Hartford and Boston, his schooling in Switzerland and Germany, the start of his career in New York - as well as to his relations with his esteemed and exacting father, with his adored first and difficult second wives, with his children, partners, business associates, female consorts, and friends. Morgan had a second major career as a collector of art, stocking America with visual and literary treasures of the past.
Strouse's biography gives dramatic new dimension not only to Morgan but to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of America's momentous Gilded Age.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Art, Bankers, Biography, Capitalists and financiers, Collectors and collecting, United States, Collectionneurs et collections, Biographies, New York Times reviewed, Morgan, j. pierpont (john pierpont), 1837-1913, Art, collectors and collecting, Banks and banking, united statesPlaces
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Morgan: American financier
2000, HarperPerennial
in English
- 1st Perennial ed.
0060955899 9780060955892
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Book Details
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"Pierpont Morgan's arrival took the quiet chamber by surprise."
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- Created April 29, 2008
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July 30, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | associate edition with work OL7200412W |
August 4, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |