Anthony Joseph Drexel Sr. (September 13, 1826 – June 30, 1893) was an American banker who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the American Civil War. As the dominant partner of Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia, he founded Drexel, Morgan & Co, which later became J.P. Morgan & Co., now JPMorgan Chase, in 1871 with J. P. Morgan as his junior partner. He also founded Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1891.

In 1892, Drexel was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He was also the first president of the Fairmount Park Art Association, now the Association for Public Art, the nation's first private organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning.

Early life

thumb|Drexel's statue at [[Drexel University in Philadelphia]]

Drexel was born in 1826 in Philadelphia 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 Joseph Drexel was raised a Roman Catholic, but he joined the Episcopal Church later.

Career

At the age of 13, Drexel began working 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.

Although raised a Roman Catholic, Drexel subsequently converted to his wife's Episcopalian faith. He and his family were members of the Church of the Saviour, now Philadelphia Cathedral, where Drexel served first as a vestryman, and later as warden. Murals located in the apse of the church honor his memory.

The Drexels had nine children:

  • Emilie Taylor Drexel (1851–1883), who married Edward Biddle III (1851-1933)
  • Frances Katherine Drexel (1852–1892), who married James William Paul Jr.
  • Marie Rozet Drexel (1854–1855), who died young.
  • Mae E. Drexel (1857–1886), who married Charles T. Stewart
  • Sarah Rozet "Sallie" Drexel (1860–1929), who married John R. Fell Sr. (1858–1895), and after his death married Alexander Van Rensselaer (1850–1933)
  • Francis Anthony Drexel II (1861–1869), who died young.
  • John Rozet Drexel (1863–1935), who married Alice Gordon Troth (1865–1947)
  • Anthony Joseph Drexel Jr. (1864–1934), who married Margarita Armstrong (1867–1948). They divorced in 1917 and in 1918, she remarried to Brinsley FitzGerald (1859–1931)
  • George William Childs Drexel (1868–1944), who married Mary Stretch Irick (1868–1948). He inherited $10 million from his father, whom best friend George William Childs, he was named after.

thumb|Historical marker commemorating Drexel in Old City, Philadelphia.Upon the death of his sister-in-law, Hannah Jane Langstroth Drexel, in 1858, Anthony and Ellen cared for his nieces, three-year-old Elizabeth and five-week-old Katherine for the next two years. When his older brother Francis married Emma Bouvier in 1860, Francis brought his two daughters home.

Anthony was also the grandfather of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. (1874–1948) and the great-grandfather of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. (1897–1961), the United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Norway.

Drexel 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 Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.

References

Further reading

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