Thomas William Lawson

Thomas W. Lawson

Thomas William Lawson (born February 26, 1857 in Charlestown ( Mass. ), † February 8, 1925 in Boston ) was an American stockbroker , millionaire and author .

Life

Thomas W. Lawson was the son of Thomas Lawson, a carpenter , and Anna Maria Lawson b. Loring, both from Nova Scotia . He lost his father at the age of eight. At the age of twelve he left his parents' home and dropped out of school so that he would no longer be a burden to his mother. He found an office job with a Boston stockbroker near what would become his own office building. At the age of 17 he made his first profits and losses on the Boston Stock Exchange . At the age of 21 he married his childhood sweetheart Jeannie Augusta Goodwillie and opened his own brokerage office a little later. By the age of 30 he had earned his first million dollar and by the age of 43 he had $ 50 million. He built his home "Dreamworld" on a large piece of land near Boston. In 1901 he became President of the Boston Bay State Gas Company for several years . In the same year he tried to compete against the Scottish tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton at the America's Cup with a specially built yacht Independence , but the responsible New York yacht club locked his boat, which for years caused tension between him and wealthy members of the club . In 1902, the world's largest schooner named after him, Thomas W. Lawson, was launched. Thomas W. Lawson had one of the steepest careers in his industry of his day and was considered the lucky guy when it came to finance. His main focus was trading in stocks of energy carriers and copper stocks . For years he was associated with Standard Oil Co., who appreciated his brokerage skills.

In the last 15 years of his life, luck for success increasingly abandoned him. He died in 1925 a poor man by his standards.

Works

Some of his books first appeared in Everybody's Magazine , (1904–1908), in which he denounced the behavior of the "money kings". His book Frenzied Finance in particular criticized the state of affairs in American finance and the stock market and earned him many opponents. In his book The Remedy , he described possible "remedies" for the grievances on the stock market, but these found no echo. His disappointment with the effect his works had on readers' opinions drove him back to the stock market.

• The Lawson History of the America's Cup . 1902; dt. "The Lawson History of the America's Cup"
• Frenzied Finance . 1905; German "financial madness"
• Friday the Thirteenth . 1907; German "Friday the thirteenth; see also Friday the 13th "
• The Remedy . 1912; dt. "The aid or the remedy"
• The high cost of living . 1913; dt. "The high cost of living"
• The leak . 1919; German "The leak"

Web links

Commons : Thomas William Lawson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Biography of Thomas W. Lawson (eng.)
• Brief description and photo (eng.)