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Anthony Joseph Drexel

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Anthony Joseph Drexel
Born(1826-09-13)September 13, 1826
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedJune 30, 1893(1893-06-30) (aged 66)
Karlsbad, Bohemia
OccupationBanker
SpouseEllen B. Rozet
ChildrenEmily Drexel Biddle (1850–1883)
Frances Katherine Drexel (1852–1892)
Marie Rozet Drexel (1854–1855)
Fannie D. Drexel Paul (1855–1892)
Mae E. Drexel (1857–1886)
Sarah Rozet Drexel (1860–1929)
Francis Anthony Drexel II (1861–1869)
John Rozet Drexel (1863–1935)
Anthony Joseph Drexel, Jr. (1865–1934),
George William Childs Drexel
Parent(s)Francis Martin Drexel
Catherine Hookey (1795–1870)
RelativesFrancis Anthony Drexel, brother
Joseph William Drexel, brother
Katharine Drexel, niece
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr., grandson
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr., great grandson
Anthony Drexel Duke, great great grandson
Anthony Joseph Drexel, Jr. (1865–1934) and Margarita Armstrong on December 29, 1916

Anthony Joseph Drexel (September 13, 1826 — June 30, 1893) was an American banker who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the Civil War. As the dominant partner of Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia, he founded Drexel, Morgan & Co (later J.P. Morgan & Co.) in New York in 1871 with J.P. Morgan as his junior partner. He also founded Drexel University in 1891.[1] He was also the first president of the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art), the nation's first private organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning.[2]

Biography

Drexel was born in 1826 in Philadelphia to Francis Martin Drexel (1792–1863) and Catherine Hookey (1795–1870). He was the brother of Francis Anthony Drexel, and Joseph William Drexel. He was the uncle of Saint Katharine Drexel.

Anthony J. Drexel's statue at Drexel University

Marriage and children

Drexel married Ellen B. Rozet (1832–1891) and they had the following children:

  • Emilie Taylor Drexel (1851–1883), who married Edward Biddle III (born 1851)
  • Frances Katherine Drexel (1852–1892), who married James William Paul, Jr.
  • Marie Rozet Drexel (1854–1855)
  • Mae E. Drexel (1857–1886), who married Charles T. Stewart
  • Sarah Rozet "Sallie" Drexel (1860–1929), who married John R. Fell, Sr., and later married Alexander Van Rensselaer
  • Francis Anthony Drexel II (1861–1869)
  • John Rozet Drexel (1863–1935), who married Alice Gordon Troth (1865–1947)
  • Anthony Joseph Drexel, Jr. (1864–1934), who married Margarita Armstrong (they had a son, Anthony Joseph Drexel II, who married Marjorie Gould, daughter of George Jay Gould I, and a daughter, Margaretta Armstrong Drexel, married Guy Finch-Hatton, 14th Earl of Winchilsea)
  • George William Childs Drexel (1868–1944), who married Mary Stretch Irick (1868–1948).

Banking

Main articles: Drexel, Morgan & Co. and Drexel, Harjes & Co.

At the age of 13 he began to work in the banking house founded three years earlier by his father, the Austrian-born American banker Francis Martin Drexel.[3] In 1847 he was named a member of the firm Drexel & Company, the original predecessor of what would become Drexel Burnham Lambert.[3]

After the death of his father in 1863, Drexel closed the bank's Chicago and San Francisco offices and changed the name of its New York branch from Read, Drexel & Co. to Drexel Winthrop. In 1867 he founded a separate Paris-based banking partnership, Drexel, Harjes & Co., with John H. Harjes and Eugene Winthrop.[3]

Three years later, in 1871, at the urging of Junius Spencer Morgan in London, Drexel became the mentor of Junius's troubled son, John Pierpont Morgan of New York, and entered into a new partnership with young Morgan, forming Drexel, Morgan & Co.[1] This new merchant banking partnership, which was based in New York, rather than Philadelphia, served initially as an agent for Europeans investing in the United States. Over the next generation, this partnership assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing Wall Street's chaotic securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies— a market that had previously existed only for railroads and canals. To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S.Government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907.[4] With the formation of Drexel, Morgan & Co., Drexel Harjes became the French affiliate of an international banking firm with offices in London, Philadelphia, New York City and Paris that would subsequently become J.P. Morgan & Co..

Two years after Drexel's death in 1893, Drexel, Morgan & Co. was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co., one of the original predecessors of what is today JPMorgan Chase. In 1901, the bank financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the world's first billion-dollar corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and other companies.

Death

Drexel died of a heart attack on June 30, 1893 in Karlsbad (in the German-speaking part of Bohemia, Austrian Empire), today Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, at the age of 66, and was buried in Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Rottenberg, Dan (2001). The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1966-X.
  2. ^ White, Theo B. (1975). Fairmount: Philadelphia's Park. Philadelphia, PA: The Art Alliance Press. p. 94. ISBN 0879820152.
  3. ^ a b c McDonald, Edward D.; Edward M. Hinton (1942). Drexel Institute of Technology 1891–1941. Haddon Craftsmen, Inc. pp. 4–5. ISBN 1-4067-6374-8.
  4. ^ Rottenberg, The Man Who Made Wall Street.
  5. ^ "Anthony J. Drexel is Dead". New York Times. July 1, 1893. Retrieved 2008-12-23. News of His Death Sent by Cable from Carlsbad. He Went There in Poor Health to Spend the Summer. Last of the Sons of the Founder of His House. Known All Over the World as a Financier. A Philanthropist as Well. Connected with Many Gigantic Transactions.

Rottenberg, Dan (2001), The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1966-X.

Further reading

  • Rottenberg, Dan (2001). The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1966-X.
  • Papadakis, Constantine (2001). Drexel University, a University with a Difference: The Unique Vision of Anthony J. Drexel. New York: Newcomen Society of the United States.
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