Anthony Joseph Drexel I (September 13, 1826 – June 30, 1893) was an American financier, banker, partner of J.P. Morgan and founder of Drexel University.

Birth

He was born in 1826 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 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.

Anthony J. Drexel's statue at Drexel University

Marriage and children

He married Ellen B. Rozet (1832?1891) and had the following children:

• Emilie Taylor Drexel (1851?1883), who married Edward Biddle III (born 1851)
• Frances Katherine Drexel (1852?1892), who married James William Paul, Jr.
• Marie Rozet Drexel (1854?1855)
• Mae E. Drexel (1857?1886), who married Charles T. Stewart
• Sarah Rozet "Sallie" Drexel (1860?1929), who married John R. Fell, Sr., and latter married Alexander van Rensselaer
• Francis Anthony Drexel (1861?1869)
• John Rozet Drexel (1863?1935), who married Alice Gordon Troth (1865?1947)
• Anthony Joseph Drexel II (1865?1934), who married Margarita Armstrong
• George William Childs Drexel (1868?1944), who married Mary Stretch Irick (1868?1948).

Banking

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, Drexel would leave Drexel & Company to found a new banking firm, Drexel, Harjes & Co., a Paris-based banking firm founded in 1868 by Drexel, John H. Harjes and Eugene Winthrop.

Three years later, in 1871, Drexel entered into a new partnership, forming Drexel, Morgan & Co. with J. Pierpont Morgan. The 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. 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.

Following Drexel's death, Drexel, Morgan & Co. was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. and is one of the original predecessors of what is today JPMorgan Chase. In the 1890s, the bank financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and others and was the world's first billion-dollar corporation.

Death

He died of a heart attack on June 30, 1893 in Karlsbad (in the German-speaking part of Bohemia, Austrian Empire) today Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic at the age of 66, and was buried in The Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.^[1]

See also

• Drexel University
• Drexel & Co.

References

Further reading

External links

• Bibliography of sources about Anthony J. Drexel and the Drexel family
• Article on Encyclopedia Britannica

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