Anthony Joseph Drexel Sr. (September 13, 1826 – June 30, 1893) was an American banker who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
. As the dominant partner of
Drexel & Co. of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, he founded
Drexel, Morgan & Co, which later became
J.P. Morgan & Co., now
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services, finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is List of largest banks in the United States, the largest ba ...
, 1871 with
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...
as his junior partner. He also founded
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony Joseph Drexel, Anthony J. Drexel, a financier ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
in 1891.
In 1892, Drexel was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
. He was also the first president of the Fairmount Park Art Association, now the
Association for Public Art, the nation's first private organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning.
Early life

Drexel was born in 1826 in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
to
Francis Martin Drexel (1792–1863) and Catherine Hookey (1795–1870). He was the brother of
Francis Anthony Drexel, and
Joseph William Drexel. He was the uncle of Saint
Katharine Drexel. Anthony Joseph Drexel was raised a
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
, but he joined the
Episcopal Church later.
Career
At the age of 13, Drexel began working in the banking house founded three years earlier by his father, the Austrian-born American banker
Francis Martin Drexel.
In 1847 he was named a member of the firm
Drexel & Company, the original predecessor of what would become
Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. was an American multinational investment bank that was forced into bankruptcy in 1990 due to its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market, driven by senior executive Michael Milken. At its height, i ...
.
After the death of his father in 1863, Drexel closed the bank's Chicago and San Francisco offices and changed the name of its New York branch from Read, Drexel & Co. to Drexel Winthrop. In 1867, he founded a separate Paris-based banking partnership,
Drexel, Harjes & Co., with John H. Harjes and Eugene Winthrop.
Three years later, in 1871, at the urging of
Junius Spencer Morgan in London, Drexel became the mentor of Junius's troubled son,
John Pierpont Morgan of New York, and entered into a new partnership with young Morgan, forming
Drexel, Morgan & Co. This new merchant banking partnership, which was based in New York, rather than Philadelphia, served initially as an agent for Europeans investing in the United States. Over the next generation, this partnership assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing Wall Street's chaotic securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies— a market that had previously existed only for railroads and canals. To restore investor confidence, Drexel, Morgan & Co. underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S. government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907. With the formation of Drexel, Morgan & Co., Drexel Harjes became the French affiliate of an international banking firm with offices in London,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, New York City and Paris that would subsequently become
J.P. Morgan & Co.
Two years after Drexel's death in 1893, Drexel, Morgan & Co. was renamed
J.P. Morgan & Co., one of the original predecessors of what is today
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services, finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is List of largest banks in the United States, the largest ba ...
. In 1901, the bank financed the formation of the
United States Steel Corporation
The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe.
The company produces and sells steel products, ...
, the world's first billion-dollar corporation, which took over the business of
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...
and other companies.
Personal life
Drexel married Ellen B. Rozet (1832–1891), the daughter of John Roset (1794–1870) and Mary Ann Laning (1807–1880) in 1850 in a service officiated by Dutch Reformed clergyman Rev. John D. Ludlow, father-in-law of the bride's sister.
Although raised a Roman Catholic, Drexel subsequently converted to his wife's Episcopalian faith. He and his family were members of the Church of the Saviour, now
Philadelphia Cathedral, where Drexel served first as a vestryman, and later as warden. Murals located in the apse of the church honor his memory.
The Drexels had nine children:
* Emilie Taylor Drexel (1851–1883), who married Edward
Biddle III (born 1851)
* Frances Katherine Drexel (1852–1892), who married James William Paul Jr.
* Marie Rozet Drexel (1854–1855), who died young.
* Mae E. Drexel (1857–1886), who married Charles T. Stewart
* Sarah Rozet "Sallie" Drexel (1860–1929), who married John R. Fell Sr. (1858–1895), and after his death married
Alexander Van Rensselaer (1850–1933)
* Francis Anthony Drexel II (1861–1869), who died young.
*
John Rozet Drexel (1863–1935), who married Alice Gordon Troth (1865–1947)
*
Anthony Joseph Drexel Jr. (1864–1934), who married Margarita Armstrong (1867–1948).
They divorced in 1917 and in 1918, she remarried to
Brinsley FitzGerald (1859–1931)
* George William Childs Drexel (1868–1944), who married Mary Stretch Irick (1868–1948). He inherited $10 million from his father, whom best friend
George William Childs, he was named after.

Upon the death of his sister-in-law, Hannah Jane Langstroth Drexel, in 1858, Anthony and Ellen cared for his nieces, three-year-old Elizabeth and five-week-old Katherine for the next two years. When his older brother Francis married Emma Bouvier in 1860, Francis brought his two daughters home.
[Larkin, Tara Elizabeth. "Drexel, St. Katharine Mary", Pennsylvania State University, Fall, 2006]
Anthony was also the grandfather of
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. (1874–1948)
and the great-grandfather of
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. (1897–1961), the United States Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, and
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
.
Drexel died of a heart attack on June 30, 1893, in Karlsbad (in the German-speaking part of Bohemia, Austrian Empire), today
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary (; , formerly also spelled ''Carlsbad'' in English) is a spa town, spa city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 49,000 inhabitants. It is located at the confluence of the Ohře and Teplá (river), Teplá ri ...
,
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
, at the age of 66, and was buried in
Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
Bibliography of sources about Anthony J. Drexel and the Drexel familyArticle on Encyclopædia Britannica
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drexel, Anthony Joseph
1826 births
1893 deaths
19th-century American businesspeople
American bankers
Episcopalians from Pennsylvania
Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism
Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel University people
Anthony Joseph
House of Morgan
Members of the Philadelphia Club
University and college founders
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
Burials at The Woodlands Cemetery
American people of Austrian descent
People associated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Members of the American Philosophical Society