could live and forcing them to pay extortionate “ protection ” money for the privilege of residing there . One Bavarian lawmaker , enraged by a bill that would have conferred equal rights to the region ’ s Jewish population , summed up the prevailing attitude when he argued that Jews would remain foreigners even if their German roots stretched back a millennium .
In 1848 , revolutions swept Europe , as people revolted against the feudal order , demanding democratic reforms and basic civil rights . Known as the Springtime of the People , these uprisings — and the oftenbrutal crackdowns that ensued to restore order — sent waves of immigrants to the United States . Many of these “ Forty-Eighters ,” as these immigrants were known , hailed from the German states . Marcus Goldman , Solomon Loeb and Mayer Lehman were part of this exodus . By some accounts , Mayer participated in the protests in Bavaria before escaping Germany to join his brothers Henry and Emanuel in Montgomery , Alabama .
Goldman and his fellow German-Jewish investment banking pioneers followed a similar roadmap . Most were graduates of what John Langeloth Loeb , Jr ., Mayer Lehman ’ s great-grandson and the onetime US ambassador to Denmark , calls “ the Harvard Business School for Jewish boys .” In other words , they started out as peddlers , often ranging deep into the American interior , far from the nearest towns and cities to hawk an assortment of hard-to-find products at remote farms , mining communities and other rural outposts . Peddlers were like mobile department stores , and they tended to specialize in luxury items , extravagances and “ fancy ” goods ( decorative knickknacks and accessories ). There often seemed to be no end to what a peddler could produce from his pack or excavate from his loaded cart : almanacs , mirrors , picture frames , china , cutlery , table linens , bedding , shawls , coats , shoes , lace , silk , embroidery patterns , watches , jewelry , sewing machines .
Peddling was the most popular start-up profession for the German-Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in the mid-1800s because it was a familiar one . It was one of the few jobs available to their fathers and grandfathers in the old country . Peddling , which could be dangerous and lonely , offered a crash course in American customs and the English language and rewarded risk-takers . After gaining some experience and accumulating some capital ,
Metropolitan Concert Company stock certificate issued to Jesse Seligman , Jr . on May 19 , 1880 .
the next rung on the economic ladder for peddlers was opening a store .
After peddling largely in New Jersey , Goldman eventually established a successful wholesale clothing business on Philadelphia ’ s Market Street . Similarly , the investment bank of Kuhn Loeb traced its origins to the thriving , Cincinnatibased clothing outfit of brothers-in-law Solomon Loeb and Abraham Kuhn ( who initially peddled in Indiana ).
The Seligman brothers , led by paterfamilias Joseph ( another peddler ), operated a handful of dry-goods stores in Alabama before branching into importing and establishing their headquarters in New York . The eldest of 11 children — eight of them boys — Joseph preceded the “ Forty-Eighters ” by a decade , arriving in 1837 during a financial crisis so severe that eight states and the Florida territory eventually toppled into bankruptcy . He based his peddling operation first in Pennsylvania , sending for one family member after the next until the entire Seligman clan had relocated to the United States .
Within 30 years of arriving in America with the equivalent of $ 100 sewn into the lining of his trousers , Joseph would be advising presidential administrations on economic policy . Ulysses Grant , a close family friend , reportedly tried to recruit him as his first Treasury Secretary . If Joseph ’ s rise from lowly pack peddler to shop-keeper to one of the nation ’ s foremost financiers seemed like a Horatio Alger tale , there was a good explanation for that . For about eight years , the up-andcoming author lived in Joseph ’ s Murray Hill mansion , where he tutored the banker ’ s sons . Alger and his employer spent many evenings bantering — Joseph enjoyed discussing literature , philosophy and religion — and over the years the author soaked up Seligman ’ s remarkable story .
The Civil War marked a dramatic inflection point , including for the upstarts who in the years to come would help to power the nation ’ s industrial transformation . It signaled their transition from merchants to bankers , though as the conflict worsened Joseph Seligman was far from optimistic about the future . “ The state of affairs in the US begins to take on a very dark aspect ,” Joseph wrote to his brothers not long after Abraham Lincoln ’ s Emancipation Proclamation . He feared for “ the downfall of not only the Government , but of all law , order and society .”
Emanuel Lehman wrote even more despondently to relatives after the war began : “ Alles ist beendet !”— It ’ s all over !
Emanuel had recently formed a New York outpost for the Lehmans ’ Montgomery-based business , which was slowly branching out from dry goods into the cotton trade . Prone to anxiety about their financial prospects on a good day , he now envisioned the most catastrophic scenarios , as a northern naval cordon tightened around the South .
Unlike the moguls who would eventually compose their New York social circle , the Lehmans thoroughly identified with
Collection of the Museum of American Finance www . MoAF . org | Spring 2024 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 17