Sublime

Anthony Drexel, of the long-established Philadelphia banking family, changing the firm to Drexel, Morgan & Co., with the older man again named first.

Morgan was among the first generation of bankers whose clients were primarily private corporations instead of governments, but there were substantial continuities in approach. His mediations among the railroad barons were very much in the tradition of the supranational financial/diplomatic service operated by the Rothschilds and the Barings in midc

His power was real, grounded in his unique role in channeling the ballooning trove of American savings. One way or another, through control of boards, investment partnerships, or just implicit understandings that a bank’s or an insurance company’s investment committee would follow Morgan’s lead, he and his partners disposed of perhaps 40 percent of

J. S. Morgan’s core business was short-term trade finance, “discounting bills,” as it was called. Its primary customers were American cotton or iron merchants. They typically sold their goods on credit, taking back a piece of paper, or “bill of exchange,” which could be cashed at a specific bank such as Barings at some set future date. If a merchan

Gould did not take a title, but had a seat on the executive committee and had four additional board seats, which he filled with his brokers.

With no way to cover their shorts, firms up and down Wall Street faced bankruptcy, as did the banks who had been financing their positions; Harriman had no choice but to back off the fight, so Morgan and Schiff could unwind their positions and forestall a crash.

This is a rare moment when the females and not the males are named in the lineage.

Very quickly the industry consolidated into four major players—Swift, Armour, Hammond, and Nelson Morris, another Chicago slaughterer—with a few other firms, like Wilson or the Cudahys, holding the fifth position from time to time.

Dodd’s trust structure became the standard technique for large combinations through the 1880s, until it was made unnecessary by the New Jersey Holding Company Act of 1890, which specifically enabled multilayered, multistate corporate structures. By that time, the term “trust” had become shorthand for almost any large business combination, regardles