Britannica Money (2024)

John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. (born Sept. 7, 1867, Irvington, N.Y., U.S.—died March 13, 1943, Boca Grande, Fla.) was an American banker and financier, the head of the Morgan investment banking house after the death of his father, John Pierpont Morgan, Sr.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1889 and became a member of his father’s banking firm, J.P. Morgan and Company, in 1892, working in the firm’s London branch for eight years. He succeeded his father as head of the firm in 1913 upon the latter’s death, becoming heir to an estate of more than $50,000,000.

Morgan had developed a deep affection for England during his stay there. As a consequence, during the first three years of World War I, he became the sole purchasing agent in the United States for the British and French governments, buying about $3,000,000,000 worth of military and other supplies from American firms on behalf of those countries. To finance the Franco–British requirements for credits in the United States, he organized more than 2,000 banks to underwrite a total of more than $1,500,000,000 in Allied bonds. After the end of the war his firm floated loans totaling more than $10,000,000,000 for European reconstruction work. Though not the dominant, masterful personality his father had been, J.P. Morgan, Jr., was still the most important American financier of his day.

During the stock market crash of October 1929, Morgan and several other major bankers pooled their funds and tried to stem the decline of stock prices, but to no avail. In 1933 the Banking Act of that year compelled his firm to separate its investment banking activities from its commercial (deposit) banking activities. Accordingly, Morgan, Stanley and Company became a new investment banking firm, while Morgan himself remained head of J.P. Morgan and Company, which thenceforth became strictly a commercial banking firm.