J. P. Morgan, Jr.
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| J. P. Morgan, Jr. | |
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| Born | September 7, 1867 New York City, New York |
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| Died | September 7, 1943 (aged 76) |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | Financier |
| Spouse | Jane Norton Grew |
Son of banking titan J. P. Morgan (Sr.) John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. (September 11, 1867 — September 9, 1943) was an American philanthropist. He was born in Chicago and graduated from Stanford in 1886, where he was a member of Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon.
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[edit] Personal
In 1890 he married Jane Norton Grew, daughter of a Boston banker and mill owner Henry Sturgis Grew, and was the aunt of Henry Grew Crosby. The couple had two sons (including Henry Sturgis Morgan, a founding partner of Morgan Stanley & Co.) and two daughters (including Frances Tracy Pennoyer, "the mother of six, a grandmother of 28 and a great-grandmother of 31"[1]). Upon his father's death in 1913, he inherited the major portion of his great fortune. Morgan died on his 76th birthday, September 7, 1943.
[edit] Career
He took a prominent part in the financial aspects of the World War I. Following its outbreak, he made the first loan of $12,000,000 to Russia. In 1915, a loan of $50,000,000 was made to the French Government. All of the munitions purchased in the United States by the British were made through one of his firms. Mr. Morgan organized a syndicate of about 2200 banks and floated a loan of $500,000,000 to the Allies.
After the war, he made several trips to Europe to investigate and report on financial conditions there. On July 4th, 1915, a Frank Holt, (AKA Eric Muenter) tried to assassinate Morgan at his home at Glen Cove on Long Island. The night before, Holt had detonated a bomb in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol. After traveling to New York by train, he attacked Morgan the next morning, shooting him twice in the groin. The stated purpose of both acts was to get the U.S. to stop shipping munitions to France and Germany during World War I. After being arrested, Holt committed suicide in his jail cell several days later.
It should also be noted that he is also one of the signers of the Federal Reserve. He resembled his father in his dislike for publicity and in continuing his father's philanthropic policy. In 1920 he gave his London residence to the U.S. government for use as its embassy and later created the Pierpont Morgan Library as a public institution in 1924 as a memorial to his father. Belle da Costa Greene, Morgan's personal librarian, became the first director and continued the aggressive acquisition and expansion of the collections of illuminated manuscripts, authors' original manuscripts, incunabula, prints, and drawings, early printed Bibles, and many examples of fine bookbinding. Today the library is a complex of buildings which serve as a museum and scholarly research center.
[edit] References
- Forbes, John Douglas. J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1867-1943. U. Press of Virginia, 1981. 262 pp. ISBN 0813908892
- Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, (2001) ISBN 0-8021-3829-2
- DeWan, George. "His Calling Cards Were Guns: A German-born gunman shot J.P. Morgan in Glen Cove in a protest about World War I." Newsday
