House of Morgan Essay

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House of Morgan

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance is a non-fiction book by Ron Chernow, published in 1990. is the most ambitious history ever written about American finance. It is a rich, panoramic story of four generations of Morgans and the powerful, secretive firms they spawned, ones that would transform the modern financial world. Tracing the trajectory of J. P. Morgan’s empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the financial crisis of 1987, acclaimed author Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the family’s private saga and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved—a world that included Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Franklin Roosevelt, Nancy Astor, and Winston Churchill. A masterpiece of financial history, the House of Morgan is a compelling account of a remarkable institution and the men who ran it, and an essential book for understanding the money and power behind the major historical events of the last 150 years.
The first section, which he calls the Baronial Era in banking, is fascinating, and for me it was a page-turner. The Morgan banking house actually began as the George Peabody bank in England, and Junius Morgan was brought over from the US to be his successor. Junius Morgan took the bank to a level far beyond where Peabody had, and then his son JP Morgan Sr. took over. JP Morgan Sr (Pierpont) is the name most associated with Morgan banking, and he was an enormously powerful and colorful character. This was the infamous age of the "Robber Barons" the rise of American railroads, big steel, and the oil industry. Pierpont was at the center of it, commanding industry while collecting art, building yachts and cavorting with women. It makes a great story.

Pierpont was succeeded by his son JP Morgan Jr(Jack) who headed the bank during what Chernow called the "Diplomatic Era". The book became less interesting. Jack was nowhere near as colorful as his father, and his reign over the bank nowhere near as autocratic. Several other bankers, among them Dwight Morrow (father of Anne Morrow Lindbergh) were major players at the bank. The bank played a huge role on the international stage in this era, and while it had strong ties to England (and its sister bank Morgan Grenfall) it also helped finance the rise of the Nazis, Mussolini and the nationalists in Japan. This was also the period of the
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