Biography of J.P. Morgan

Hartford, Connecticut was the birthplace of J. P. Morgan. His parents, Junius Spencer Morgan and Juliet Pierpont, hailed from Boston, Massachu temperedts. J. P. Morgan was educated partly at the English High School in Boston and finished his educate at the University of Gottingen in Germany. After leaving the University he had entered his fathers office in London. He was an extraordinary mathematician and had been squiffyly tempted to take up the career of professor of mathematics. barely his father thought some otherwise, and in the offices of George Peabody and partnership five-year-old Pierpont got his initial training in the technicalities of commercial banking and no doubt began the develop handst of that unusual cepacity for exact and quick decision which so strongly characterized his entire career. (Hovey, 2) He suffered with decrepit fever in the spring of 1852. The illness took such a toll on him that he was left unable to walk. This was the start of a feel long battle with diseases of different sorts that recurred through come on his lifetime clock time.As part of a retrieval effort, his father sent him to the Azores on a mail owned by Charles Dabney, named Io. It took him an course of study to fully rec all over and be able to attend rail a crystalise. After graduating from Boston, a school named Bellerive at Vevey in Switzerland became his home. Once he gained command on the French language, the University of Gottingen became his new abode where he worked on his German. Within half an year, he developed a satis factory nates in that language. Done with his studies, he arrived in the English capital discharge through Wiesbaden on the way..Personality Description John Pierpont Morgan was an example of moral excellence, apprisal the old hymns his mother taught him, fraternizing with bishops, forgiving his enemies, loving those who hated him, visiting retch friends and going sorrowfully to their funerals, bouncing his grandchildren o n his knees, and molding his numerous collective reorganizations for the good of the country. The man was magnificently endowed to play the role of financial imperator. There was the necessary bulk of bone and flesh.He was six feet tall, weighed two snow pounds. Standing with feet apart, looking forward, he seemed poised to make a redoubtable advance. His head was life- coat, craglike, salutary poised on his broad shoulders, his countenance rough-hewn. The stop number lip, even as a boy, was heavy, and as he grew older, hidden merchantman his unruly mustache, it gave to his face an typeface of cruelty. His powerful jaws and rugged brow were cadaverous down in an imperious scowl. His bulbous nose accentuated the dark aspect of his visage.His large, wide-opened hazel eyes bent upon a visitor or supplicant with terrifying attentiveness and made him a formidable man in conference. (Hovey, 2-3) As a boy in high school his teacher said he was little short of a prodigy and could exculpate mentally problems in cubic root and numerous decimals. He could turn to French and German because he had spent two years in a French school in Switzerland and two at the University of Gottingen. however he had no use for the classics. He could express himself in pen English in a clear, train, and vigorous style.Furthermore, even as a youth, he could edit these excellent sentences down in a contri barelye of great neatness and symmetry. He was superlatively choosy about his friends. notwithstanding as a boy in school he change integrity with but few. But he was deeply devoted to them as well as to his family, his parents particularly. From the time he returned to America from school at Gottingen in 1857 to 1890, when his father died in Europe, he never let a ship leave for England without writing him a letter. Often he had to write these garner late at night aft(prenominal) the rush of the days work.His father hold them in a series of books in his library. Twenty years after(prenominal) his father died, Morgan, looking through them, put them into the furnace. That was in 1911, a year of magnate hunting. He was growing old, and these letters were full of news, comments, opinions on the events and men of his time. Early Life John Pierpont was successively academy teacher, private tutor, attorney and merchant. Urged to the church, he was ordained minister in 1819, accepting a recall to become pastor of the Hollis highroad Church, Boston.Pierpont was a vital force in the Unitarian Church and one of the most active organizers of the American Unitarian Association. But the man was more than a minister, he was a accessible rebel. Compact of scriptural austerity, righteous indignation and moral passion, John Pierponts pietism was warmed by humanitarian aspirations for social betterment. (Magill, 15) It was in 1857, the year of a great financial panic in the coupled States, that John Pierpont Morgan, a tall, taciturn young man of twenty, step ped on the stage of American business.At that time the house of George Peabody and Company was doing its American business through the unfermented York theater of Duncan, Sherman and Company, and this steadfastly was so seriously crippled in the financial crisis that in order to save the situation George Peabody and Company had to appeal to the Bank of England for assistance. This work through impressed the London house with the vital importance of stuffyr maneuver of its American business, and it was decided to send young Pierpont Morgan to represent the firm in tonic York as cashier of Duncan, Sherman and Company.In the offices of Duncan, Sherman and Company, Pierpont Morgan met Charles H. Dabney, a partner in the firm and also the accountant. It was through association with Dabney that Morgan acquired his remarkable and accurate knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting. (Brandeis, 56) But the connection of the Peabody firm with Duncan, Sherman and Company was not destined t o conclusion very long. In 1864, the year in which George Peabody retired and was succeeded by Junius S. Morgan, Pierpont Morgan and Dabney formed a new firm beneath the name of Dabney, Morgan and Company, with offices in Exchange Place, unexampled York.This new firm became the correspondents of J. S. Morgan and Company of London. A few years later, Duncan, Sherman and Company failed and faded from view. 1871 saw the establishment of Drexel, Morgan & Company. Based in New York, it was the essence of Morgan joining hands with the Drexels of Philadelphia. By 1895, the company became to be known as J. P. Morgan & Company. It preserved its earlier relationships with Drexel & Company, Philadelphia in the USA. On the other side of the Atlantic, close relationships were also maintained with Morgan, Harjes & Company in Paris, and J. S. Morgan & Company in London.From 1910 onwards, the latter(prenominal) came to be known as Morgan, Grenfell & Company. (Magill, 17) The group turned into a n influential banking affect by the turn of the century, brokering big money deals in the corporate orbit relating to reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. Although Morgan worked with a number of partners including George W. Perkins, he managed to keep managerial control with him over the course of his career. Morgan rose to prominenece through his constant involvement in large corporate and financial deals that seemed more like wars hence mere business.He spare Jay Gould and Jim Fisk of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad in 1869, and then lobbied Washington DC to put an end to the financial assistanc granted to Jay Cooke by the government. This was folowed by the suppuration of a kingdom of railroads across the USA. (Brandeis, 62) This was accomplished through, M & A activity and financial assistance. Morgan then went on to raise huge funds on the other side of the Atlantic. This money was utilized in the confrontructuring of the rail roads so that higher o utputivity could be attained.Speculation was discouraged by Morgan as he purported a plan to transform the existing transport infrastructure ino a unique connected and inter linked mechanism. In 1885 he reorganise the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railroad, leasing it to the New York Central. 1886 saw Morgan move his efforts into the Philadelphia & Reading rail road followed by Chesa aggrandisemente & Ohio in 1888. Following the the interstate Commerce Act in 1887, Morgan hosted application conferences in 1889 and 1890. (Hovey, 3) It served as a forum for railroad bosses to highlight the oppurtunities that the new legislation provided.Consensus was obtained for the charging of public, reasonable, uniform and unchanging rates to consumers. This was a unique initiative on the behalf of Morgan, the outfall of which were the M & A activities in the 20th century. About the time he went into business for himself he also fell in love with a young charr named Amelia Sturgis. And this romantic episode forms one of the most appealing incidents in the life of this grim man. It revealed in him depths of tenderness, which his later life in Wall Street concealed wholly from the public.She was perhaps the first or at least among the first young women he met when he arrived from Europe. His attachment to her deepened tardily but it was probably begun in those first meetings at Newport in the very first week he spent in America. In the spring and spend of 1861 he was in all immersed in the personal problem created by Mimi Sturgis condition. She had assure tuberculosis. She was wasting away rapidly. There was very little that could be make then against the ravages of this dread enemy.Before the summer was over he made up his mind to marry Mimi, to give up his business and devote him completely to saving her life. Her parents tried to induce him to give up his chivalrous project. But he was not to be turned aside. And so in advance(prenominal) October, in the Sturgis home in East Fourteenth Street, with only the family present, young Morgan carried the frail Mimi downstairs in his arms, held her at his side while the jointure ceremony was performed, and then tenderly lifted her again in his strong arms and bore her to the waiting carriage and on to the pier.They went to London and then to Algiers with its warm sun and then, as she continued to fade, to Nice. There she died four months after the marriage. Two months later, in May, he brought her body home and laid it to rest at Fairfield. This tragedy crushed him, for a time seemed to have unkept his spirit and watered down his ambition to utter frustration. But slowly he took up the broken threads, brought his old Cheshire school friend, Jim Goodwin, into partnership with him, and set off again upon his course. Later Years Following the elderly Morgans death in 1890, J.S. Morgan & Co, known as Morgan, Grenfell & Company from 1910 onwards came below the leadership of the son. In 1900, he began negotiations with Charles M. Schwab then head of Carnegie Co. Andrew Carnegie had a train stake in the company. Morgan aimed to takeover a number of steel and branding iron businesses including Carnegies. The final plan was to merge them into one, thus giving birth to the United States Steel Corporation. The deal was struck for a staggering sum of $480 million. No lawyers and no written proof of the sale were the highlights of this deal.By 15h of January 1901, newspapers were filled with the news of the be merger. Late 1901, saw the birth of U. S. Steel with a capitalization of $1. 4 billion. (Hovey, 5) Given its financial strength, it was the first company of its kind. The mission of the new coompany was to gain the advantages offered by economies of scale. These included cutting down transportation and resource costs, diversifying product lines and focusing on efficient delivery. Moreover, now the USA was in direct competition with the likes of Brit steel and and the German ste el giants.(Forbes 15) The sheer size of the company was instrumental as it paved the way for a orbicular market for steel and its products. The company came under heavy fire from industry observers who blamed the companys management of trying to establish an industrial hegemony by venturing into the construction of all products that embodied the use of steel as a major raw material. Morgan soon controlled 67 percent of the market share and Schwab predicted the company to hold three quarters of the industry under its belt. However, time proved otherwise as the market share detoriated, proving his prediction wrong.(Brandeis, 63) Morgan also ventured into the manufacturing and mining sectors. Morgan also had stakes in Banks, insurance companies, transportation system lines and communications systems providers. His concern routed large amounts of capital that was instrumental in the development of America. (Magill, 16) Morgan was criticised for financing the federal government in th e 1895 crisis through the use of gold. The critics disagreed with him on his proposed solution to the Panic of 1907, and blamed him for the poor economic state of New York, New Haven & Hartford RR. It was discovered that the J. P. Morgan & Co.coupled with the board of the First topic and National City Bank had a resource pool of $22,245,000,000. This fact was made public in 1912 by a a subcommittee of the crime syndicate Banking and Currency committee. This financial resource pool was equavivalent to the valu of real estate in the twenty-two states that lies west of the Mississippi River, according to Louis Brandies, former Judge of the tyrannical Court. (Forbes 15) Nikola Tesla and his Wardenclyffe Tower were recipents of monetary support from Morgan worth $150,000. Following Teslas failure, Morgan pulled out of the venture in 1904.It is estimated that Morgan and his firm of partners controlled assets worth $1. 3 billion during the peak of their power in the dawning years of the 20th century. Works Cited Magill, inconsiderate N. Great Lives from History. Michigan Salem Press Inc. 1987. Pg 15-17. Hovey, Carl. The Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan. New York Sturgis & Walton Company. 1911. Pg 2,3,5. Brandeis, Louis D. Other Peoples Money And how the Bankers Use it. Sunnyvale Stokes. 1914. Pg 56, 62, 63. Forbes Bertie C. Men who are Making the West. Emeryville Forbes create Company. 1923. Pg 15.