August Belmont

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August Belmont

August Belmont (born as Aron Belmont , also August Schönberg ; born December 8, 1813 in Alzey , †  November 24, 1890 in New York City ) was a German-American banker and politician .

biography

August Belmont was born as the first son of Simon Belmont (1789-1859) and Frederika. Alsace born. In the birth register of the city of Alzey (1813, no. 114) his first name is Aron . He came from a once influential Jewish family with Sephardic roots, named after the Portuguese town of Belmonte . When he was seven years old, his mother died. Shortly afterwards he moved to Frankfurt am Main , where he lived with his uncle and grandmother. Her sister-in-law was married to a son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild . Through this connection, the 14-year-old August got a job at the renowned Frankfurt bank Rothschild after leaving school in 1828 without a degree. By 1832 he rose from simple assistant to authorized agent and did business in Naples , Paris and Rome . In Rome he advised the Papal States on its financial affairs.

In 1837 he was sent to Havana to manage the Rothschild branch there. He traveled through New York City , where he arrived on May 14, 1837, to settle troubled affairs for the MA Rothschild & Sons banking house . A few days before his arrival, a severe economic crisis had broken out there. He spontaneously decided to stay in New York. His last name, which had been used for years in the Germanized form Schönberg , was changed back to Belmont . He immediately started his own business, August Belmont & Company , which was initially housed in a small room on 78 Wall Street . His company took over numerous bankrupt companies on favorable terms. He also declared that he owned the Rothschild branch there, which angered the Rothschilds. After he had started to discount bills of exchange on behalf of Rothschild , the bank did not contradict this procedure, although it distrusted Belmont's unauthorized conduct. Within a few years, Belmont rose to become one of the richest men and leading bankers in the United States. As a rival of the Barings banking house , he became one of the largest lenders to the US government. Belmont, who encountered some anti-Semitism and suspicion when he entered the New York financial world (rumors circulated that he was an illegitimate son of Rothschild), joined the Episcopal Church of the United States of America , the predominant church of the New York patriciate , in 1841 .

Belmont acquired American citizenship in 1844. In the same year he was appointed provisional consul general of Austria in New York. Four years later Austria granted him this position permanently. He resigned from this office in 1850 in protest against what he believed was Austria's cruel policy towards Hungary .

In implementing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848, August Belmont & Company on behalf of the United States transferred a sum of around three million dollars to the Mexican government in order to cede the land north of Mexico To compensate Rio Grande .

On November 7, 1849, Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry, the daughter of Naval Officer Matthew Calbraith Perry . Her uncle, Rep . John Slidell , got Belmont to stand up for the Democratic Party and fund the nomination of James Buchanan as a presidential candidate. However, after Franklin Pierce was nominated as a candidate, Belmont changed camp.

After Pierce had won the presidential election in 1852 , he named Belmont as the Chargé d'affaires of the USA in The Hague , in gratitude for the generous financial contribution during the election campaign. Belmont sought the office of ambassador to Spain , but Pierce's successor James Buchanan refused. Belmont took part in 1860 as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention , in which he supported the Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas .

In the same year he was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee in Baltimore . He held this office until 1872. Belmont was an ardent advocate of Unionist interests during the Civil War, and exerted a strong influence on merchants and financiers from the UK and France . He particularly played a major role in the endeavor of the Northern states , which in the confederation organized southern states in an attempt to hinder their recognition by European states and their financing. Belmont has been a leader in placing US Treasuries in European markets. Belmont was also involved when the New York Railway Company designed its first elevated railway line through New York City in 1871 . His son August Belmont junior later got into the business of financing traffic systems .

August Belmont died in 1890 at the age of 76. He was buried in Island Cemetery in Newport , Rhode Island .

Aftermath

The figure of the ringmaster Stromboli in Walt Disney's Pinocchio is said to be modeled on Belmont.

In the year he died, a compilation of his letters and speeches was published under the title Letters, Speeches and Addresses of August Belmont . The famous Belmont Stakes horse race and Belmont Avenue in Brooklyn are named after Belmont, who was an avid sports fanatic, a founder of the American Jockey Club and the Jerome Park Racetrack . The small town of Belmont in New Hampshire was also named after him in 1859 - an honor he never wanted to recognize in his entire life. The figure of Julius Beaufort in the novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton should be modeled after August Belmont. A Walt Disney animator said that Belmont inspired him in developing the character of Stromboli in the animated film Pinocchio .

His sons Perry (1851–1947), August jr. (1853-1924) and Oliver (1858-1908) were also prominent figures. Belmont's sister Elisabeth (Babett) married Stephan Feist, Koblenz, who then took over the name Belmont ( Feist-Belmont ).

literature

  • Irving Katz: August Belmont, a Political Biography. Columbia University Press, New York City 1968. ISBN 0-231-03112-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eric Homberger: Mrs. Astor's New York. Money and Social Power in Gilded Age . Yale University Press. New York 2002/2004, ISBN 0-300-09501-5 , pp. 174 f. ( online )
  2. ↑ Some sources name 1816 as the year of birth.
  3. ↑ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2834-belmonte
  4. ^ Richard JH Gottheil: The Belmont-Belmonte Family. A Record of Four Hundred Years . New York 1917, p. 171 ff., P. 234
  5. ↑ Charles R. Geist: The History of Wall Street. From the beginnings of the financial mile to the fall of Enron . FinanzBook Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89879-260-8 , p. 52 ( online )
  6. ^ Rainer Liedtke: NM Rothschild & Sons. Communication channels in European banking in the 19th century . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-36905-7 , p. 129 ( online )
  7. ↑ Charles R. Geisst: Wall Street. A history . Oxford University Press, New York 1997, 2012 revised edition, ISBN 978-0-19-539621-8 , p. 33 ( online )
  8. ^ Roger P. Roess, Gene Sansone: The Wheels That Drove New York. A History of the New York City Transit System . Springer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-30483-5 , p. 161 ( online )
  9. ^ Charles D. Ellis, James R. Vertin: Wall Street People . Volume 2, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey 2003, ISBN 0-471-27428-3 , p. 3 ( online )
  10. ↑ Stephen Birmingham, "Our Crowd". The Great Jewish Families of New York . First Syracuse University Press Edition, Harper & Row, New York 1967, ISBN 0-8156-0411-4 , p. 141 ( online )
  11. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of August Belmont
  12. ↑ See article Jerome Park Racetrack on Wikipedia
  13. ↑ Leonard Benardo, Jennifer Weiss: Brooklyn by Name. How the Neighborhoods, Streets, Parks, Bridges and More Got Their Names . New York University Press, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-8147-9945-1 , p. 122 ( online )
  14. ↑ Charles R. Geisst: Wall Street. A history . P. 37
personal data
SURNAME Belmont, August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belmont, Aron (maiden name); Schoenberg, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American banker and politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Alzey
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1890
Place of death New York City