J.P. Morgan Sr. was a major figure in international finance before WWI. An agent for his father Junius Spencer Morgan in New York, he formed 1871 the banking house of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which 24 years later was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. After the crash of 1893, Morgan was active in railroads, reorganizing several lines in the Eastern United States. He also marketed U.S. gonvernment securities on a masssive scale. In 1898 he entered the field of industrial consolidation, forming the Federal Steel Company and (1901) the United States Steel Corp. The latter firm included the Carnegie steel interests, which were purchased for $400 million. Morgan had wide-range influence over many of the companies that he financed, an influence that was, however, probably exaggerated in public opinion. A great art collector, he gave many works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His collections of manuscripts and books is housed in the Morgan Library in New York City.

J.P. Morgan Jr. was a financier and the son of John Pierpont Morgan Sr., whose holdings he inherited. The Morgans had used their banks to gain control of a huge empire of industries, railroads, and insurance companies. They financed corporate mergers and in return gained major roles in the merged companies. One of the most important companies they controlled was U.S. Steel (which owned *Star White Line*, which owned *Titanic*). Of course, the Morgan's economic power gave them tremendous political power as well. But to those who were opposed to such concentrations of wealth, the name Morgan became almost synonymous with what they saw as big business's excessive power. J.P. Morgan Jr. was instrumental in financing $1.5 billion in Allied military purchases during WWI and in arranging $1.7 billion in reconstruction loans after the war.