Anthony J. Drexel
| Anthony Joseph Drexel, Sr. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 13, 1826 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | June 30, 1893 (aged 66) Karlsbad, Bohemia |
| Occupation | Banker |
| Spouse(s) | Ellen B. Rozet |
| Children | 9 |
| Parent(s) |
Francis Martin Drexel Catherine Hookey |
| Relatives |
Francis Anthony Drexel (brother) Joseph William Drexel (brother) Katharine Drexel (niece) Anthony Drexel Biddle, Sr. (grandson) Anthony Drexel Biddle, Jr. (great-grandson) |
Anthony Joseph Drexel, Sr. (September 13, 1826 – June 30, 1893) was an American banker who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the Civil War. As the dominant partner of Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia, he founded Drexel, Morgan & Co (later J.P. Morgan & Co.) in New York in 1871 with J.P. Morgan as his junior partner. He also founded Drexel University in 1891. He was also the first president of the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art), the nation's first private organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning.
Drexel was born in 1826 in Philadelphia to Francis Martin Drexel (1792–1863) and Catherine Hookey (1795–1870). He was the brother of Francis Anthony Drexel, and Joseph William Drexel. He was the uncle of Saint Katharine Drexel.
At the age of 13 he began to work in the banking house founded three years earlier by his father, the Austrian-born American banker Francis Martin Drexel. In 1847 he was named a member of the firm Drexel & Company, the original predecessor of what would become Drexel Burnham Lambert.
After the death of his father in 1863, Drexel closed the bank's Chicago and San Francisco offices and changed the name of its New York branch from Read, Drexel & Co. to Drexel Winthrop. In 1867 he founded a separate Paris-based banking partnership, Drexel, Harjes & Co., with John H. Harjes and Eugene Winthrop.
Three years later, in 1871, at the urging of Junius Spencer Morgan in London, Drexel became the mentor of Junius's troubled son, John Pierpont Morgan of New York, and entered into a new partnership with young Morgan, forming Drexel, Morgan & Co. This new merchant banking partnership, which was based in New York, rather than Philadelphia, served initially as an agent for Europeans investing in the United States. Over the next generation, this partnership assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing Wall Street's chaotic securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies— a market that had previously existed only for railroads and canals. To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S.Government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907. With the formation of Drexel, Morgan & Co., Drexel Harjes became the French affiliate of an international banking firm with offices in London, Philadelphia, New York City and Paris that would subsequently become J.P. Morgan & Co..
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