J.P. Morgan

In a very real sense, Morgan was a paradox. The ruthless behavior that was needed to become one of the richest people in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century is contrasted in his life with his great charity work. In this essay, the two sides of J.P. Morgan's personality will be examined.

Frederick Lewis Allen (p. 1) called J.P. Morgan "the most influential banker in the world and the mightiest personal force in American business life during his lifetime." Unlike other influential capitalists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and George F. Baker, J.P. Morgan was born to a relatively wealthy family with a good social position.

Allen (p. 11) says that Morgan "grew up in an atmosphere of financial security, rising business prestige, and rising worldly consequence." He was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 17, 1837. After going to college in Germany for two years, Morgan began working as an accountant in the New York firm of Duncan, Sherman, and Company (Monkeyshines Explores Math, Money, and Banking, p. 123).

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uld eliminate competition altogether." His business strategy was therefore focused on creating companies that were conglomerates. This was an extremely successful way to do business and was also a new way of looking at the world of business and profits. In his life, J.P. Morgan was both admired and hated. Robert J. Samuelson (p. 43) believes that Morgan "played roles now assumed by the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury and government agencies yet to be created" However, while Morgan could be ruthless in forcing business owners into mergers that they did not want, he also exercised his power with a strong sense of moral responsibility. Morgan was "a conduit for capital. He connected wealthy investors, American and foreign, with railroads and industrial enterprises that needed money for expansion" (Samuelson, p. 43). Once he put together a company, he did not withdraw from it. He appears to have considered himself to have been a guardian of the wealth of his investors. When those companies experienced trouble Morgan became directly involved in them. He "installed new managers, revamped industries, had his partners sit on corporate boards. The point was to ensure that his investors
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Approximate Word count = 1912
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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