The Young Entrepreneur, 1840

The Patriarch, about 1900

Jay Cooke in his prime

Jay Cooke, the Veteran Capitalist

The Cooke Family, 1892

Jay Cooke’s Early Career

• trained in trading house in St. Louis

• learned transportation business at brother-in-law’s shipping firm in Philadelphia

• 1839 joined E. W. Clark & Co (Philadelphia, one of largest private banks in US), learned how to market securities, made partner 1842, by 1851 was also a partner in its branches NYC and St. Louis, retired from firm 1858

• bought and reorganized bankrupt abandoned canals and railways in Pennsylvania 1858-1861, and put them into operation

Jay Cooke, Civil War Financier

• January 1, 1861 opened Jay Cooke & Co (private bank, Philadelphia), floated a war loan of $3,000,000 to state of Pennsylvania

• early months of Civil War helped U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase get loans from leading bankers in North

• great success in distributing treasury notes (paper money)

• Treasury Dept failed to sell $500,000,000 of “Twenty-five” bonds authorize by Congress 2-25-1862; Chase named Cooke and two larger banks as special agents for sale

• Cooke advertised in press, appointed 2,500 sub-agents, quickly sold $11,000,000 more than authorized (Congress quickly sanctioned the excess)

• influenced establishment of national banks

• organized a national bank at Washington, DC and another at Philadelphia

• early 1865 played similar role in sale of $830,000,000 in “Seven-thirty” government bonds between February and July

A Check on Cooke’s New York Bank, 1868

A Bond

Cooke Castle on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie

Rev. Henry, Jay Jr., and Families Playing Croquet

Daughters and Grandchildren Picnicking

Luxury Pullman on the Northern Pacific

Cooke’s Private Steamer

The Sportsmen: Cooke, Charles Barney, Henry Cooke

Jay Cooke State Park, Minnesota

Jay Cooke Statue in Minnesota

Jay Cooke Jr.’s Mansion in Philadelphia

Charles Barney Mansion

John Butler Mansion

Midwestern Farmhouse

Colorado Mining Town

Railroad Workers’ Shanty

Eleutheros Cooke’s House in Sandusky, OH

Charles D. Barney & Co

Southern Pacific ad

Cooke’s artist Thomas Moran, 1883

Moran at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone, 1871

Moran’s sketch of Cinnabar Mountain, 1871

Moran’s sketch of Devil’s Slide, Yellowstone, 1871

Moran’s Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone, 1871

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872, commissioned by Jay Cooke)

Marketing the West: A Northern Pacific $60 Chit for the Park

Northern Pacific ad for Mammoth at Yellowstone, 1902

Marketing the West: Be an Early White Explorer

Marketing the West: Nostalgia for Adventure

The Old West: Nostalgia or Triumphalism?

Northern Pacific ad

Old Faithful

Jay Cooke and the Gilded Age – Key Ideas

• the idea of capitalism

• the source of profit (labor theory of value)

• capital accumulation (method of obtaining profit)

• investments (capital circulation, “making money work for

you”)

• investment banking (managing capital, floating stocks and

bonds)

• locking up accumulated capital (creating family trusts)

• the development of advertising (creation of desire)

• development of tourism and creation of “destinations”