February 28, 2012 (Tuesday)

Susie J. Pak
Assistant Professor of History
St. John’s University

J.P. Morgan, German-Jewish Bankers, and the Crisis of the First World War
Pak will present a history of how the First World War created a crisis among New York’s elite investment bankers, focusing on the relationship of the partners of J.P. Morgan & Co. and their main competitor, the German Jewish bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Pak will describe how elite bankers dealt with the conflict presented by the War and the attendant rise of American state power and nationalism. In the process, Pak demonstrates how the Morgans, who were often portrayed as leaders of a collusive elite bound by the pursuit of money living in a world onto themselves, were in fact deeply embedded in the society around them and thus, not immune to the racial and ethnic prejudices and gender hierarchies that characterized the New York society where they lived. Based on her forthcoming book, Gentlemen Bankers.

Co-Sponsors: Rare Book & Manuscript Library; Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History; St. John’s University Department of History