J.P. Morgan and His Giant, Knobbly, Purple
Nose John “J.P.” Morgan is a name synonymous
with business. A man who was so respected and influential
in the spheres of business and finance that the appearance of the guy on the Monopoly
board, Rich Uncle Pennybags, is thought to be based on him. But rather than talk about how Morgan accumulated
his truly vast amount of wealth, how he was such a powerful force in the world of finance
that he once rescued the United States government from bankruptcy in 1893; or that time in 1907
when he managed to stop cold the Wall Street Panic of 1907 which might have otherwise plunged
the U.S. into a Depression (and the result of which inspired the creation of the Federal
Reserve System, for when someone like J.P. Morgan wasn’t around to fix the situation);
or that time he financed Thomas Edison in the invention of a commercially viable light
bulb and helped form General Electric; or any of the other of his countless history
changing business conquests, no, we’re going to talk about something much less well known
about this admiral of industry- his giant nose. Now given the list of accomplishments attributed
to Morgan and the ridiculous amount of power he wielded during his lifetime to the point
that the President of the United States was called his lapdog and nicknames in the finance
industry for the man included Zeus and Jupiter, it may seem a little odd that we want to talk
about his nose; so let us explain. Morgan didn’t just have a bulbous nose;
it was also purple-ish/red because of a skin condition he suffered from as a child known
as rosacea. This causes the blood vessels in the face
to dilate and rupture. In addition to this, Morgan also suffered
from rhinophyma, which is a common side effect of rosacea, resulting in numerous growths,
lesions and fissures also marking the surface of his nose. But here’s the thing, almost nobody in America
during Morgan’s lifetime was aware of any of this- impressive considering he was one
of the most famous business magnates in the world for a not insignificant portion of his
life. jp-morganMorgan was largely able to avoid
having the general public know about his condition by being absolutely terrifying both in private
and public. Standing at an intimidating 6 ft 2 inches
tall (the average male height in the U.S. at the time was 5’7″ or 170 cm, and in
Europe 5’5″ or 165 cm) with massive shoulders and piercing eyes some have likened to those
a magpie, few people dared approach Morgan in public and fewer still dared to do so with
a camera out of fear Morgan would quite literally attempt to beat them half to death in the
street. This may sound like hyperbole, but Morgan
was known to violently lash out at anyone who attempted to take his photo without his
permission, so much so that one of the few unofficial pictures we have of him actually
shows him in the middle of swinging his walking stick at the cameraman’s face. While conducting business Morgan was decidedly
less violent, but was still feared by those who had to deal with him due to his infamously
short temper. Morgan hated long meetings and would often
seemingly make snap judgements about business deals and people, sometimes throwing the latter
out of his office mere seconds after meeting them. This habit earned Morgan the nickname “Yes-or-No
Morgan” amongst his peers. Though many assumed this was simply a result
of Morgan’s temper, behind the scenes he had his staff meticulously research anyone
who wished to meet with him and what exactly they were going to be presenting him with
so that by the time they shook hands, he already knew a lot about them and had made himself
an expert on whatever venture they would be proposing; thus, he was really just looking
to size the individual up in person before agreeing to some deal or tossing them out. Supposedly Morgan started doing this as a
result of a shady business deal he financed during the American Civil War that came to
be known as the Hall Carbine Affair, the unscrupulous nature of which Morgan purportedly had been
ignorant of- he had simply lent one Simon Stevens the $20,000 (a little over half a
million dollars today) to move forward with the scheme. (Speaking of the Civil War, Morgan himself
never took part, instead paying a substitute to take his place. The cost? $300, about $9,000 today, or roughly the amount
of money Morgan spent on a single order of cigars, which he smoked dozens of every day.) Outside of countless extramarital affairs
(his first wife, Amelia “Mimi” Sturges, “the only woman he ever loved” died of
tuberculosis within four months of their marriage; his second, Frances Louisa Tracy, he wasn’t
so loyal to), Morgan was known as a man of impeccable moral integrity as a result of
his deeply religious beliefs. He was also famous for his hands-on approach
to business, often insisting on personally meeting with anyone who wished to deal in
any significant way with any of his many business holdings. In these meetings, Morgan would use his towering
frame and reputation to squarely address prospective business partners, making unflinching eye
contact the entire time- a refusal to hold his gaze was seen as weakness by Morgan and
meetings where a person failed to shake his hand in a satisfactory manner rarely lasted
long. morganBack to his visage, Morgan intensely
disliked having his portrait painted, due to both his self-consciousness about his nose
(something he required be touched up in all photographs and paintings to appear more normal)
as well as the fact that he simply didn’t like sitting still doing nothing. As a result, portrait painters often used
a picture of Morgan he would intensely scrutinise beforehand. A notable example of this occurred in 1903
when an artist called Fedor Encke hired a young photographer by the name of Edward Steichen
to take a picture of the business titan to help him complete a portrait he had been commissioned
to create. Steichen spent hours perfecting the lighting
for the resulting shoot, using a janitor with a similar build to the tycoon to sit in for
Morgan who himself agreed to turn up for only a grand total of 5 minutes. The eventual shoot lasted only 3 minutes,
the efficiency of which inspired Morgan to exclaim to Steichen, “I like you, young
man!” According to Steichen, Morgan turned up to
the shoot and without saying a word, sat in the chair positioned in the middle of the
room and struck a dignified pose; Steichen obliged and took a photo before saying something
that would define his later career- “Would you mind moving your head?” Morgan answer the question with a withering
glare that Steichen managed to quickly capture with a second photo before Morgan could change
his expression. Morgan then stood up, paid Steichen $500 (about
$13,000 today) and after a brief exchange, left. JP-Morgan-daggerKnowing Morgan’s sensitivity
about his nose, Steichen touched up the two photos as best he could to make the protuberance
look more normal, then took the photos to Morgan to show him the result. Morgan loved the first, ordering a dozen copies
and ordering that Fedor Encke use it as the basis of the aforementioned portrait. The second photo, however, was much closer
to the stereotypical idea of J.P. Morgan- the ruthless robber baron. In fact, whereas the first photo showed Morgan
as a dignified businessman, the second literally made him look like he was about the stab someone. You see, beyond his stern expression, it looked
like he was holding a knife in his hand thanks to a quirk of the lighting which made the
arm of the chair Morgan was holding look like a small dagger. Morgan hated the photo and tore up the first
copy he saw on the spot before throwing Steichen out of his office. Perhaps in an attempt to make sure the photo
never saw the light of day, Morgan offered the photographer $5,000 ($130,000 today) for
the original print, which he never sold, as a way of annoying the banking behemoth for
being so rude to him. When Morgan eventually requested copies of
that second photo, Steichen agreed to send them over, but delayed doing so for three
full years. As he said, this was “my rather childish
way of getting even with [him] for tearing up that first proof.” In the end, Morgan died with virtually nobody
outside of his circle of friends and those he did face-to-face business with knowing
how he truly looked, and it took years for actual, untouched photos of the man to surface
publicly- so tightly had he controlled his image. Beyond controlling how people saw him visually,
unfortunately for those of us who love history, Morgan’s love of privacy also inspired him
to, shortly before his death, burn thousands of letters he wrote, including just over 30
years worth of weekly letters to his father in England concerning the state of business
and politics in the United States starting in the 1850s- letters which otherwise would
have been a veritable treasure-trove of firsthand accounts and insights on business and politics
in the United States from one of the greatest businessmen in history.
