Cover of Time Magazine (November 11 1929)

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 Thursday 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.

Lamont died in Boca Grande, Florida. 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.^[1] His great-grandson, Ned Lamont, was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Connecticut in 2006.

Trivia

• Commuted to Wall Street by yacht.

• A Great Lakes steamer named for him was launched in 1930.

References

1. ^ "T. S. Lamont 2d And Bobbi Silber Exchange Vows", The New York Times, June 19, 1988. Retrieved on 2006-08-10. 

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