Happy birthday, financier J.P. Morgan

It is the birthday of financier J.P. Morgan (1837), who was one of the richest and powerful men in America in the era of the Robber Barons. He supplied gold to the U.S. Treasury to end the Panic of 1896. He personally averted the banking Panic of 1907 by locking financial leaders in his New York mansion until they agreed to solutions to the problem. He merged companies to form General Electric and U.S. Steel. He underwrote the rescue of The New York Times from financial disaster. Morgan was an avid collector of art, books and gemstones. He contributed to the American Museum of Natural History and helped start the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His private collection formed the foundation of the Pierpont Morgan Library.