Anthony Joseph Drexel

File:AJDrexelStatue.jpg 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.{{cite book|title=Church and Estate: Religion and Wealth in Industrial-Era Philadelphia|first=Thomas |last=F. Rzeznik|year= 2013| isbn= 9780271063256| page =126|publisher=Penn State Press|quote=}}

{{Main|J.P. Morgan & Co.|Drexel, Harjes & Co.}}

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.{{cite book|last=McDonald|first=Edward D.|author2=Edward M. Hinton|title=Drexel Institute of Technology 1891–1941|publisher=Haddon Craftsmen, Inc.|year=1942|isbn=1-4067-6374-8|pages=4–5}} 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 in 1863, Drexel closed the bank's Chicago and San Francisco offices and changed the name of its New York branch from Read, Drexel & Co. to Drexel Winthrop. In 1867, he founded a separate Paris-based banking partnership, Drexel, Harjes & Co., with John H. Harjes and Eugene Winthrop.

Three years later, in 1871, at the urging of Junius Spencer Morgan in London, Drexel became the mentor of Junius's troubled son, John Pierpont Morgan of New York, and entered into a new partnership with young Morgan, forming Drexel, Morgan & Co.{{sfnp|Rottenberg|2001}} This 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. Over the next generation, this partnership assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing Wall Street's chaotic securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies— a market that had previously existed only for railroads and canals. To restore investor confidence, Drexel, Morgan & Co. underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S. government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907.{{sfnp|Rottenberg|2001}} 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.

Two years after Drexel's death in 1893, Drexel, Morgan & Co. was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co., one of the original predecessors of what is today JPMorgan Chase. In 1901, the bank financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the world's first billion-dollar corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and other companies.

Drexel married Ellen B. Rozet (1832–1891), the daughter of John Roset (1794–1870) and Mary Ann Laning (1807–1880) in 1850 in a service officiated by Dutch Reformed clergyman Rev. John D. Ludlow, father-in-law of the bride's sister.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZL-BpElFOVwC&dq=Anthony+Joseph+Drexel+%2B+religion&pg=PA251 Rottenberg, Dan. The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, p. 46] {{ISBN|9780812219661}}

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.[https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/stories/anthony-j-drexel "Anthony J. Drexel", West Philadelphia Collaborative History]

The Drexels had nine 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), 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){{cite news|title=A.VAN RENSSELAER, ARTS PATRON, DEAD {{!}} Philadelphia Philanthropist and Sportsman Succumbs to Long Illness at 82. {{!}} PRINCETON LIFE TRUSTEE {{!}} President of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association From 1901 Till Recently.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1933/07/19/archives/ayanrensselaer-arts-patron-dead-v-____________________-philadelphia.html|access-date=22 February 2017|work=The New York Times|date=19 July 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).{{cite news|title=MRS. BRINSLEY FITZGERALD|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/02/13/85211846.html?pageNumber=21|access-date=10 August 2016|work=The New York Times|date=February 13, 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.{{Cite web |date=2025-03-24 |title=Drexel in Philly: The Founder’s Old City |url=https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2025/March/drexel-in-philly-the-founders-old-city |access-date=2025-04-13 |website=drexel.edu |language=en}}

File:AJ Drexel sign.jpgUpon 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.[http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Drexel__St_Katharine.html Larkin, Tara Elizabeth. "Drexel, St. Katharine Mary", Pennsylvania State University, Fall, 2006] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017035017/http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Drexel__St_Katharine.html |date=2014-10-17 }}

Anthony was also the grandfather of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. (1874–1948){{cite magazine |title= The Theater: New Plays in Manhattan |date= December 3, 1956 |magazine= Time magazine |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866393,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070208174257/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866393,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= February 8, 2007 |access-date= March 17, 2011 }} and the great-grandfather of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. (1897–1961), the United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Norway.{{cite news |title=Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Dead. Ambassador to Spain Was 64. Envoy and Officer in World War II. Tributes Paid by Kennedy and Eisenhower |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/11/14/archives/anthony-j-drexel-biddle-dead-ambassador-to-spain-was-64-envoy-and.html |quote=Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, ambassador to Spain and for many years one of this country's most distinguished diplomats, died today at Walter Reed Army ... |work=The New York Times |date=November 14, 1961 |access-date= April 10, 2010 }}

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.{{cite news |title=Anthony J. Drexel is Dead. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1893/07/01/archives/anthony-j-drexel-is-dead-philadelphias-great-banker-stricken-with-a.html |quote=News of His Death Sent by Cable from Carlsbad. He Went There in Poor Health to Spend the Summer. Last of the Sons of the Founder of His House. Known All Over the World as a Financier. A Philanthropist as Well. Connected with Many Gigantic Transactions. |work=The New York Times |date=July 1, 1893 |access-date=2008-12-23 }}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Rottenberg |first=Dan |title=The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance |edition=1 |location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-8122-3626-2 |oclc=878526769 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/manwhomadewallst00rott }}
• {{cite book |last=Papadakis |first=Constantine |author-link=Constantine Papadakis|title=Drexel University, a University with a Difference: The Unique Vision of Anthony J. Drexel |publisher=Newcomen Society of the United States |location=New York |date=2001 }}

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• {{Find a Grave|9204051|access-date=August 9, 2010}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060222024745/http://www.library.drexel.edu/archives/history/drexelfamilybibliography.html Bibliography of sources about Anthony J. Drexel and the Drexel family]
• [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/171488/Anthony-Joseph-Drexel Article on Encyclopædia Britannica]

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Category:1826 births

Category:1893 deaths

Category:19th-century American businesspeople

Category:American bankers

Category:Episcopalians from Pennsylvania

Category:Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism

Category:Drexel Burnham Lambert

Category:Drexel University people

Anthony Joseph

Category:House of Morgan

Category:Members of the Philadelphia Club

Category:University and college founders

Category:Businesspeople from Philadelphia

Category:Burials at The Woodlands Cemetery

Category:American people of Austrian descent

Category:People associated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society