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.