Thomas W. Lamont
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Thomas William Lamont, Jr. (September 30, 1870 – February 2, 1948) was an American banker.
Lamont was born in Claverack, New York. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1888 and earned his degree from Harvard University in 1892. He became a generous benefactor of the school once he had amassed a fortune, notably funding the building of Lamont Library. After 1910, he became a partner of J.P. Morgan & Co., and served as a U.S. financial advisor abroad in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1919 Paris negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, Lamont was selected as one of two representatives of the United States Department of the Treasury on the American delegation.
Lamont later undertook a semiofficial mission to Japan in 1920 to protect American financial issues in Asia. He however did not aggressively challenge Japanese efforts to build a sphere of influence in Manchuria.[1]
In 1926, Lamont, self-described as "something like a missionary" for Italian fascism,[2] secured a $100 million loan for Benito Mussolini.[3]
On Black Tuesday in 1929, he was acting head of J.P. Morgan & Co. He tried to inject confidence back into the stock market through massive purchases of blue chip stocks. Following the reorganization of J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1943, Lamont was elected chairman of the board of directors.
At the end of World War II, he made a very substantial donation toward restoring Canterbury Cathedral in England. His widow, Florence Haskell Corliss (whom he had married on October 31, 1895) donated Torrey Cliff, their weekend residence overlooking the Hudson River in Palisades, New York, to Columbia University. It is now the site of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Upon her death, a bequest established the Lamont Poetry Prize.
[edit] Personal Life
Lamont died in Boca Grande, Florida, in 1948. His son, Corliss, was a philosophy professor at Columbia University and an avowed socialist. Another son, Thomas Stilwell Lamont, was later vice-chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust and a fellow of the Harvard Corporation.[4] Another son, Lansing Lamont, was a reporter with Time Magazine from 1961-74. He published several books,[5] including You Must Remember This: A Reporter’s Odyssey from Camelot to Glasnost about his experiences covering the important events of the time, including the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Thomas Lamont's great-grandson, Ned Lamont, was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Connecticut in 2006.
[edit] References
- ^ Banker as Diplomat
- ^ [1]
- ^ The House of Morgan
- ^ "T. S. Lamont 2d And Bobbi Silber Exchange Vows". The New York Times. June 19, 1988. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1D61E3CF93AA25755C0A96E948260. Retrieved on 2006-08-10.
- ^ [Ingham, John N. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Greenwood Press, Westport CT, 1983. pgs 750-753.]
Thomas Lamont was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Alpha chapter).
