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With
the outstanding growth of international commerce and the Industrial
Revolution, banking became so lucrative, that certain houses rose to
outstanding wealth and prominence. The most successful Jewish
banking family was Rothschild, whose progenitor started in the
1760's as a dealer in old collectible coins, based in Frankfurt's
Judengasse, literally "Jew Street". In two generations, Mayer
Amschel Rothschild and his five sons established a banking empire
that stretched all over Europe and was the foremost financial power
of the Old Continent. America was then still young and
Jewish bankers presence scarce*.
Jewish
banking presence in the United States of America effectively started
in the aftermath of the 1837 panic, when a young Rothschild agent
[August Belmont] on the way to Cuba, established a bank on his own,
with the intention to represent Europe's foremost Jewish banking
family. The other major Jewish banking houses, J. & W. Seligman,
Kuhn, Loeb & Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs,… were all
established during or after Civil War, by former merchants. A
generation later, they had a consequent if not quite dominating
position on Wall Street.
*Sephardic Jews
like Asser Levy were successfully established as merchants in New
York and other American cities at the earliest of colonial times and
Haym Solomon was an outstanding financier of the American
Revolution, whose engagement with patriot bonds eventually led to
his ruin. But no noteworthy Jewish banking firm was established in
the United States of America before August Belmont took over the
Rothschild agency in 1837.
Bankers of the Gilded Age
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Jewish Banking Houses
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