The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America, Schulman - B

                       This is the story of the German-Jews who came to America in the 19th century and founded some of the country's greatest financial institutions. Almost all of them came here impoverished. Indeed, their empires "were born out of rickety wooden carts and bulging canvas rucksacks." 

                       Eighteen-year-old Joseph Seligman arrived in NY in 1837 with the equivalent of $100 sewed into his trousers. He succeeded as a peddler, brought his siblings to New York, and opened an import business in lower Manhattan. A decade later, Henry, Emmanuel, and Mayer Lehmann opened a dry goods store in Alabama. Lehman Brothers branched into financing the cotton trade. As the country grew, so did both firms. The Seligmans opened a successful business in San Francisco, and the Lehman's opened an office in New York. Both families profited during the Civil War, provisioning and financing both sides. "The Civil War seeded vast fortunes that would grow vaster still in the Gilded Age to come."  Jacob Schiff, son of a wealthy Frankfurt family, arrived in New York in 1865, and within two years opened his own brokerage firm. A month later, Kuhn & Loeb opened.  Marcus Goldman moved to NY from Philadelphia and opened his own financial firm.  After the Panic of 1873 during which Jacob Schiff's firm disbanded, he joined Kuhn Loeb. By the end of the decade, Schiff and Seligman were two of the most prominent financiers on Wall Street. The new Hayes administration turned to both firms to lead the underwriting that would retire most of the country's Civil War debt. At the height of his power and at the age of 60, Joseph Seligman was the first of the German-Jewish titans to die. 

                     Jacob Schiff ascended to Seligman's position as the preeminent Jewish banker in the country. He joined civic boards, was instrumental in integrating NYC  schools, and encouraged the city to focus on underground railways, not elevated lines.  He spent the next forty years as the leading philanthropist of Jewish causes.  In 1881, the Russian Empire began punishing its Jews, falsely blaming them for the assassination of the Tsar. Over the next thirty years, two million would immigrate to America. Schiff marshaled the resources of the Jewish community to assist them.  He orchestrated one of the most encompassing and far-reaching act of private generosity for a broad class of people in American history. 

                   In the 1890's, two members of the Hamburg based banking dynasty M M Warburg married into NY banking families, one to Frieda Schiff and one to Nina Loeb. Otto Kahn married the daughter of a Kuhn Loeb partner as well. The Goldman and Sachs families also combined through marriage. 

                   Jacob Schiff was at the apogee of his career. He and Otto Kahn succeeded in reorganizing the Union Pacific RR, which JP Morgan believed was beyond repair. Jacob's distaste for Russia led him to finance Japan during its war with the Russian Empire. His efforts were so well appreciated that when he went to Japan, he was presented with the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor Meiji. The family and firm name still resonate in Japan a century later.  Upon his return to the states, he was faced with increasingly anti-business acts by the Roosevelt administration and the burgeoning Panic of 1907. JP Morgan almost singlehandedly pulled the country out of the crisis, paving the way at long last for the US to establish a central bank seven years later.

                   Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers began to partner together in bringing IPO's to the fore starting with United Cigar and Sears Roebuck, and most successfully with FW Woolworth and Co.

                   As the twentieth century progressed, first under Roosevelt, and then under Wilson, the excesses of the Gilded Age, which had built many Yankee and Jewish fortunes came under attack by the Progressives. Nonetheless, the Wall Streeters collaborated with the government in the creation of the Federal Reserve System and Paul Warburg was the first appointment to the Federal Reserve Board that Wilson made. WWI presented major conflicts for those who still identified as German, particularly Jacob Schiff and Henry Goldman. Czarist Russia on the side of the Allies was a particularly trying point for Schiff, who personally subscribed to loans supporting the German war effort. He also contributed generously to aid for Jews in the Eastern European war zones and in Palestine. As Wall Street began to finance the Allied effort, Schiff's insistence on neutrality hurt both Kuhn Loeb's reputation and profits. The firm fully supported the war after America joined the Allies, but it had lost, and would not recover, its preeminent position as one of the leading American investment banks. Similarly, Henry Goldman hurt his firm by doing business with the Central Powers early in the war. In 1917, Henry withdrew from Goldman Sachs.  Many younger members of the Jewish families worked hard for the war effort;  Herbert Lehman,  Jimmy Warburg, and his cousin Freddy all were commissioned officers stationed stateside. Bobbie Lehman was an officer in France. Members of  the different families were engaged in raising money for Liberty Bonds, and every conceivable relief group imaginable. The fragmented German-Jewish community had, in the end, supported the American effort.

                 "From the first moment of the 1920's an aura of angst and upheaval suffused American life." The US rejected the Versailles Treaty. Anti-semitism was on the rise and was led by one of America's most famous people. Henry Ford published 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' and tried to tarnish Jacob Schiff as the man who brought Bolshevism to Russia by opposing the Czar. The US passed stringent anti-immigration laws because of the influx of Jews and Italians in the early 20th century.  JP Morgan's headquarters were bombed, as was the home of the Attorney-General. The Red Scare ensued. 

                 Jacob Schiff died in September, 1920. Tens of thousands watched his casket travel from the synagogue to the cemetery.  This is an excellent book and it's very enjoyable to know a bit more of the background of the names that have dominated both the financial services world and the city of New York. Jacob Schiff, a name I only learned a few months ago in a different book, was truly an extraordinary man whose generosity was astounding.