Sunday, April 21, 2013

Our Crowd: J. & W. Seligman & Company

The firm of J. & W. Seligman, headed by Joseph Seligman, had its origins in 1837 in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, when Joseph arrived as a young immigrant from Germany.  Joseph would progress from foot peddler to one of the greatest financiers in the history of United States.  By 1865 the Seligman firm alone would sell $60 million of a single United States bond issue.  By 1898, Joseph would be dead, but the firm would still be doing big business.  While the Seligman name has since faded from high finance, the firm was the second great Jewish New York financial firm to emerge in the 1800s, after that of August Belmont and his Rothschild connections. 



J. & W. SELIGMAN & CO.
1899

Stephen Birmingham recounts the story of the Seligman family, and Joseph Seligman's efforts to unite his brothers into a worldwide financial empire.  Though the beginnings were in Mauch Chunk, the route for the Seligman family to New York would pass through the deep south, like the path of the Lehman brothers.  


NEW YORK
NOV   29   1901
J. & W. S. & CO.





Joseph Seligman



William Seligman


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