John Pierpont MORGAN, BANKER SR

                   John Pierpont Morgan, 1867-1943, b. Irvington, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1889,
became active head of the house of Morgan when his father died in 1913. The
firm was called upon to help finance World War I, and as American agent for
Allied countries, the banking house raised huge funds-one issue valued at $500
million-and systematized the purchases of military supplies. In the postwar
period it floated securities of foreign governments and corporations reaching
$2 billion, at the same time sponsoring over $4 billion of domestic securities.
Morgan and his partners actively promoted great mergers after 1922 and
controlled numerous nonbanking corporations. The younger J. P. Morgan
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 endowed the
Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City as a research institute in memory of
his father. A sister of the younger J. Pierpont Morgan, Anne Morgan, 1873-1952,
was devoted to numerous philanthropic and civic organizations and constantly
voiced the rights of the American woman. (See biographies of J. P. Morgan
(1837-1913) by H. L. Satterlee (1939, repr. 1975), F. L. Allen (1949), and J.
Strouse (1999). See also V. Carosso, The Morgans (1987); R. Chernow, House of
Morgan (1990).
Source: Encyclopedia.com.
J.P. Morgan Jr. was a financier and the son of John Pierpont Morgan Sr., whose holdings he inherited. The Morgans had used their banks to gain control of a huge empire of industries, railroads, and insurance companies. They financed corporate mergers and in return gained major roles in the merged companies. One of the most important companies they controlled was U.S. Steel (which owned *Star White Line*, which owned *Titanic*). Of course, the Morgan's economic power gave them tremendous political power as well. But to those who were opposed to such concentrations of wealth, the name Morgan became almost synonymous with what they saw as big business's excessive power. J.P. Morgan Jr. was instrumental in financing $1.5 billion in Allied military purchases during WWI and in arranging $1.7 billion in reconstruction loans after the war.