Before that in 1871, Morgan merged with Drexel and Company an investment banking Philadelphia and formed the firm Drexel, Morgan and Company.
Morgan became closely allied with the powerful New York Central, which under Cornelius Vanderbilt became the largest company in the United States at that time.
Drexel, Morgan and Company dominated the country’s burgeoning railroad industry, and soon became the most influential and powerful bank to corporate interests in the country.
Upon his father’s death in 1890, Morgan inherited the London business and its global connections. And with Drexel’s death in 1893, Morgan became the patriarch of a vast financial empire.
J.P Morgan and Company helped organized the US Steel Corporation in 1901 an the International Harvest Corporation in 1902.
J.P Morgan and Company then save the New York Stock Exchange and New York City itself with an eleventh hour deal that put an end to the financial panic of 1907 by assembling a syndicate $30 million in bonds from the city.
In September 1935, J.P Morgan and Company was divided into two firms: commercial banking operations were house under Morgan, while a new company, Morgan Stanley, assumed control of investment banking operations.
J.P Morgan and Company finally went public in 1940 ending the bank’s history as a partnership.
By the 1980s, J.P Morgan had shifted its focus from commercial banking for the bluest of blue bloods into investment banking.
Early history of J.P Morgan and Company
