J.P Morgan and Company

Drexel, Morgan & Co. was established in 1871 and in 1895 it helped finance the Federal Reserved during the depression of that year. The new merchant banking partnership served initially as an agent for Europeans investing in the United States, ultimately raising much of the capital to support American industrial expansion.

In 1895 it was renamed J.P Morgan & Co., under the leadership of J. Pierpont Morgan, who helped finance the career of Andrew Carnegie and merged as one of the biggest and most powerful banking institutions on Wall Street.

When gold reserves fell in 1894, J. Pierpont Morgan formed a syndicate to save the gold standard for the U.S. government and, through his influence, played a central role during the 1907 financial panic, saving several trust companies and a leading brokerage house, bailing out the City of New York and rescuing the New York Stock Exchange.

As part of New Deal reforms instituted in 1933 during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the US government separated commercial and investment banking services. As a result in September 1935 JP Morgan & Co was divided into two firms: commercial banking operations were house under Morgan, while a new company, Morgan Stanley assume control of investment banking operations.

In 1999, J.P Morgan & Co merged with the Chase Manhattan Bank to become JP Morgan Chase.

J.P Morgan and Company