Mackenzie Rockefeller
Mr. Helton
3rd hour

John Pierpont Morgan “Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther,” a quote by someone quite eligible to say such wise words, J. P. Morgan. Morgan was born on April 17th, 1837 and was raised in Hartford, Connecticut to Junius Spencer Morgan and Juliet Pierpont, of Boston, Massachusetts. Morgan had an extensive and varied education; in 1848, Pierpont transferred to the Hartford Public School and then to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut. In 1851, Morgan was accepted into the English High School of Boston, a school that specialized in math to prepare young men for careers in commerce. In 1852, rheumatic fever left him in so much pain that he could not walk, so Morgan’s father sent him to the Azores to recover, and after convalescing for about a year, he returned to the English High School in Boston to resume his studies. After he graduated, his father sent him to Bellerive, a school in Switzerland. Once Morgan gained his fluency in French, his father sent him to the University of Göttingen in order to improve his German as well. With a passable level of German within six months and also a degree in art history, Morgan traveled back to London, with his, extensive, education finished.
In 1861, Morgan married Amelia Sturges, who liked to be called Mimi. She died the following year, so he married Frances Louisa Tracy, known as Fanny, on May 31, 1865. Morgan and Fanny had four children; Louisa Pierpont Morgan, J. P. Morgan Jr., Juliet Pierpont Morgan, and Anne Tracy Morgan. Each of his children married except for Anne, who became a philanthropist instead.
John Pierpont Morgan, “J.P. Morgan”, was an American financier, banker, philanthropist and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation while he was alive. Morgan began his banking career in 1857 at the London branch of merchant banking firm, Peabody, Morgan & Co., a partnership between his father and George Peabody. In 1858, he moved to New York City to join Sherman & Company, the American representatives of George Peabody and Company. During the American Civil War, Morgan purchased five thousand defective rifles from an army arsenal at $3.50 and then resold them to a field general for $22, showing how smart he was with his money. His process of taking over troubled businesses to reorganize them became known as "Morganization," where he reorganized business structures and management in order to return them to profitability. His reputation as a banker and financier also helped bring interest from investors to the businesses he took over.
After his father, Juilius, died in 1890, Morgan took control of J. S. Morgan & Co.. He began talks with Charles M. Schwab, president of Carnegie Co., and Andrew Carnegie in 1900. The goal of Morgan’s was to buy out Carnegie's steel business and merge it with several other steel, coal, mining and shipping firms to create the United States Steel Corporation. In 1901 U.S. Steel was the first billion-dollar company in the world, having an authorized capitalization of $1.4 billion, which was much larger than any other industrial firm and comparable in size to the largest railroads at the time.
Morgan was also a collector of books,