Morgan

Here for the first time is the biography Morgan has long deserved-a magisterial, full-scale portrait of the man without whose dominating will American finance and culture would be very different from what they are today. In this beautifully crafted account, drawn from more than a decade's work in newly available archives, the award winning biographer jean Strouse animates Morgan's life and times to reveal the entirely human character behind the often terrifying visage.

Morgan brings eye-opening perspectives to the role the banker played in the emerging U.S. economy as he raised capital in Europe, reorganized bankrupt railroads, stabilized markets in times of crisis, and set up many of the corporate and financial structures we take for granted. And surprising new stories introduce us in vivid detail to Morgan's childhood in Hartford and Boston, his schooling in Switzerland and Germany, the start of his career in New York-as well as to his relations with his esteemed and exacting father, with his adored first and difficult second wives, with his children, partners, business associates, female consorts, and friends. Morgan had a second major career as a collector of art, stocking America with visual and literary treasures of the past. Called by one contemporary expert “ the greatest collector of our time,” he spent much of his energy and more than half of his fortune on art.

Strouse's extraordinary biography gives dramatic new dimension not only to Morgan but to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of America's momentous Gilded Age.

Contents

• Introduction

1. Part One - Character
   

2. Money and trust
   
3. Pierponts and Morgans
   
4. A moral eduction
   
5. Foreign affairs
   
6. New York
   
7. A house divided
   

   Part Two - Heir Apparent
   

8. Questions of control
   
9. New directions
   
10. Ill winds
    
11. "The future is in our hands"
    
12. Family affairs and professional ethics
    
13. "The gilde age"
    
14. A railroad Bismarck ?
    
15. Fathers and sons
    

    Part Three - Senior
    

16. In private
    
17. Consolidations
    
18. Romance
    
19. Politics of gold
    
20. Acquisitions and losses
    
21. The dynamo and the virgin
    
22. raid
    
23. Trouble
    
24. Community of interest on the Atlantic
    

    Part four - Patron
    

25. Collector
    
26. Singular women
    
27. Black number
    
28. "More colossal than ever"
    
29. Panic
    
30. Trio
    
31. Portraits
    
32. Trust and money
    

• Afterword
  
• Select bibliography
  
• Notes
  
• Ackowledgments
  
• Index