Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

By Daniel Schulman

Putzel Goldman — it doesn ’ t quite have the same stately ring as Goldman Sachs . Yet this is how the world ’ s most powerful investment bank might have been known had Marcus Goldman remained in his initial partnership with Mayer Putzel .

Marcus joined up with Putzel shortly after relocating to New York from Philadelphia in 1869 with his wife Bertha and their five children . Putzel , also Jewish and of German extraction , was an experienced note broker who traveled the cobbled lanes of Manhattan ’ s financial district making

“ The Peddler ’ s Wagon ” illustration drawn by Charles Green Bush , 1868 . Peddling was the most popular start-up profession for the German- Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in the mid-1800s . short-term loans to local merchants . Note brokers packaged these IOUs — the predecessor of commercial paper — and sold them in bulk to local banks at a discount , replenishing their capital for the next day ’ s transactions . It was a volume business , and Marcus evidently excelled at it . After about a year , he departed Putzel Goldman and struck out on his own , forming the firm that would become Goldman Sachs . At the time , the credit reporting agency R . G . Dun & Co . didn ’ t think much of his prospects , deeming Goldman “ too timid to do much bus [ iness ].”

It ’ s not surprising that the credit reporters underestimated Goldman . Nothing in his background suggested he would lay the cornerstone of a financial empire so massive and ubiquitous that today there is no need to say anything more than the surname of its founder . ( Mercifully , for the company ’ s employees , not Putzel .) He shared that trait — and much else besides — in common with a tight-knit group of business titans who , from remarkable and surprising origins , helped to transform Wall Street as we know it .

The founders of Goldman Sachs , Kuhn Loeb , J . & W . Seligman & Co . and Lehman Brothers — who formed close business and personal connections and whose firms , at various points , dominated American finance — were German-Jewish immigrants , mostly from Bavaria , who sought refuge in the United States in the mid-19th century . The kingdoms of pre-unification Germany had largely treated Jews as a permanent underclass , restricting them from most professions , barring them from property ownership , dictating where they

16 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Spring 2024 | www . MoAF . org