The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America

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The incredible saga of the German-Jewish immigrantswith now familiar names like Goldman and Sachs, Kuhn and Loeb, Warburg and Schiff, Lehman and Seligmanwho profoundly influenced the rise of modern finance (and so much more), from the New York Times best-selling author of Sons of Wichita

Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabama. Not far behind were Solomon Loeb and Marcus Goldman, among the Forty-Eighters fleeing a Germany that had relegated Jews to an underclass.

These industrious immigrants would soon go from peddling trinkets and buying up shopkeepers IOUs to forming what would become some of the largest investment banks in the worldGoldman Sachs, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers, J. & W. Seligman & Co. They would clash and collaborate with J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, and other famed tycoons of the era. And their firms would help to transform the United States from a debtor nation into a financial superpower, capitalizing American industry and underwriting some of the twentieth centurys quintessential companies, like General Motors, Macys, and Sears. Along the way, they would shape the destiny not just of American finance but of the millions of Eastern European Jews who spilled off steamships in New York Harbor in the early 1900s, including Daniel Schulmans paternal grandparents.

In TheMoney Kings, Schulman unspools a sweeping narrative that traces the interconnected origin stories of these financial dynasties. He chronicles their paths to Wall Street dominance, as they navigated the deeply antisemitic upper class of the Gilded Age, and the complexities of the Civil War, World War I, and the Zionist movement that tested both their burgeoning empires and their identities as Americans, Germans, and Jews.

Reviews

"The origin stories of America's great Jewish banking familiesamong them, the Lehmans, the Schiffs, the Goldmans, and the Seligmanshave always been shrouded in some mystery. But no longer. Thanks to Daniel Schulman's endlessly riveting and triumphant The Money Kings, the fascinating details of how these determined men made their marks, and their fortunes, on Wall Street are revealed, many for the very first time." William D. Cohan, author of Power Failure

Daniel Schulman's fascinating book tells the story of not one but two Jewish communities in New York more than a century ago. The relationship between themthe wealthy uptown elite and the poor downtown immigrantsmakes this an absorbing tale." Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight

"The Money Kings is more than just a riveting unraveling of the history of high-finance in America. It gives voice to the Jewish peddlers who remade Wall Street, debunks antisemitic conspiracy theories, and offers inspiration to new generations of big-dreaming immigrants." Larry Tye, author of Demagogue

Author Bio

DANIEL SCHULMAN is the New York Times best-selling author of Sons of Wichita, a biography of the Koch family that was a finalist for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. The deputy Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones, he lives in Massachusetts, with his wife and sons.