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Joseph David's son Seligman b. November 1819 d. 25 April 1880
From Rodovid EN
| Lineage | Seligman |
| Sex | Male |
| Full name (at birth) | Joseph David's son Seligman |
| Parents
♂ David Isaac Seligman [Seligman] ♀ Fanny Steinhardt (Seligman) [Steinhardt] b. 1799 d. 3 September 1841 | |
| Wiki-page | wikipedia:en:Joseph_Seligman |
Events
November 1819 birth:
child birth: ♂ Alfred Lincoln Seligman [Seligman]
child birth: ♀ Sophie Joseph's Daughter Seligman [Seligman]
child birth: ♂ George Washington Seligman [Seligman]
child birth: ♂ David Joseph's son Seligman [Seligman]
marriage: ♀ Babet Steinhardt (Seligman) [Steinhardt]
4 October 1852 child birth: New York City, ♀ Frances Joseph's Daughter Seligman [Seligman] b. 4 October 1852
10 July 1855 child birth: ♂ Isaac Newton Joseph's son Seligman [Seligman] b. 10 July 1855
25 April 1861 child birth: New York City, USA, ♂ Edwin Robert Anderson Joseph's son Seligman [Seligman] b. 25 April 1861 d. 18 July 1939
25 April 1880 death:
Notes
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Joseph Seligman (1819–1880) was a prominent American banker and businessman. He was born in Baiersdorf, Germany, emigrating to the United States when he was 18. With his brothers, he started a bank, J. & W. Seligman & Co., with branches in New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, London, Paris and Frankfurt.
In the post-Civil War Gilded Age, J. & W. Seligman & Co. invested heavily in railroad finance, in particular acting as broker of transactions engineered by Jay Gould. They underwrote the securities of a variety of companies, participating in stock and bond issues in the railroad and steel and wire industries, investments in Russia and Peru, the formation of the Standard Oil Company, and shipbuilding, bridges, bicycles, mining, and a variety of other industries. Later, in 1876, the Seligmans joined forces with the Vanderbilt family to create public utilities in New York.[1] In 1877, Seligman was involved in the most publicized antisemitic incident in American history up to that point, being denied entry into the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York by Henry Hilton.
As a small child, Seligman worked in his mother's dry goods shop. Present-day Germany consisted of many independent states in the early 19th century, most of which issued their own, differing coinages; and young Joseph made a profit at his mother's store changing money for travelers for a small fee.
Joseph's father wanted him to enter the family wool business, but circumstances made this difficult; in particular, migration of the peasant class (Seligman's father's customers) from rural areas to urban meant a loss of job opportunities and a shrinking economic base in Baiersdorf.
At fourteen, Seligman attended the University of Erlangen. At seventeen, he boarded a steamer at Bremen and sailed to America.
Seligman initially settled in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, where he went to work as a cashier/clerk for Asa Packer, who later become a United States congressman. His salary was $400.00 a year.
Using his savings from work, Seligman began selling goods door to door in rural Pennsylvania (jewelry, knives, smaller goods), saving outlying farmers the trouble of coming into town to buy their goods. After saving $500, Seligman was able to send to Germany for his brothers William and James, who joined him in peddling.
The Seligmans encountered some antisemitic abuse in their interactions with Americans, though they were not discouraged from continuing to sell.
Seligman's firm made a number of investments in railroads. Among these were the Missouri Pacific, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, the South Pacific Coast Railroad, and the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. They also helped finance New York's first elevated railway.
The Seligmans tended to lose money on their railroad ventures. An example the purchase of land in Arizona to be used for grazing cattle, which could then be transported on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad line. However, the aridity of Arizona made it unsuitable for the venture.
During the American Civil War, Seligman was responsible for aiding the Union by disposing of $200,000,000 in bonds "a feat which W. E. Dodd said was 'scarcely less important than the Battle of Gettysburg'".
Later historians have suggested that Seligman's role in financing the war through bonds has been exaggerated. According to Stephen Birmingham, Seligman was obliged to accept "7.30 bonds" from the government as payment for the uniforms his factory was delivering. Union defeats, combined with a suspiciously high interest rate, lowered confidence in the bonds, making them difficult to sell.
President Ulysses S. Grant, who had befriended Jesse Seligman when he was a First Lieutenant near Watertown, New York, offered Joseph Seligman the post of United States Secretary of the Treasury, which he declined, possibly due to shyness. George Sewall Boutwell accepted the position and eventually clashed with the Seligmans.
In 1877, President Rutherford Hayes asked Seligman, August Belmont, and a number of other New York bankers to come to Washington, D.C., to plan a refinancing of the war debt. Each banker submitted a plan, but Secretary of the Treasury Sherman accepted Seligman's plan as being the most practical. It involved retaining gold reserves totaling forty percent of circulating greenbacks through bond sales.
Joseph Seligman's siblings were, in order of birth, William (born Wolf), James (born Jacob), Jesse (born Isaias), Henry (born Hermann), Leopold (born Lippmann), Abraham, Isaac, Babette, Rosalie, and Sarah.
He married his cousin Babet Steinhardt in a ceremony in Baiersdorf in 1848. Together, they had five sons, David, George Washington, Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, Isaac Newton Seligman, and Alfred Lincoln, as well as four daughters, Frances, Sophie and two others.
From grandparents to grandchildren
♂ Isaias Jesse Seligman marriage: ♀ Henriette Hellmann , Munich
death: 23 April 1894, Coronado (Californie)
occupation: La Nouvelle-Orléans, Directeur de la Seligman & Hellman Banking House
marriage: ♀ Frances Joseph's Daughter Seligman , New York City
death: 9 October 1901, New York City
