J. P. Morgan

John Pierpont Morgan Sr. was born April 17, 1837, into a banking family — his grandfather had co-founded Aetna. By the Gilded Age he ran the firm that would become JPMorgan Chase and made himself the architect of industrial consolidation, stitching together the sprawling corporations that came to define American capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century. His portfolio stretched across Aetna, Western Union, Pullman Car Company, and a rail empire of 21 lines. During the Panic of 1907 he assembled a coalition of financiers to stop the monetary system from buckling. He died in his sleep in R…