August Belmont

August Belmont ( born December 8, 1813 in Alzey, † November 24, 1890 in New York City ) was a German - American banker and politician.

Biography

August Belmont was born the son of Simon and Frederika Elsass Schönberg born. He came from a Jewish family when he was seven years old his mother died. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Frankfurt, where he lived with his uncle and his grandmother. Your sister was married to a son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Through this connection, the 14 -year-old August Belmont got a job at the renowned Frankfurt-based bank Rothschild. He rose to 1832 from a simple assistant to the officers and on -actuated shops in Naples, Paris and Rome.

In 1837 he was sent to Havana to guide the local Rothschild branch. He traveled through New York City, where a severe economic crisis broke out shortly before his arrival. He decided to remain in New York, changed his last name to " Belmont " and founded his own company, August Belmont & Company. He took over on favorable terms numerous bankrupt firm and also the local Rothschild office.

Belmont acquired American citizenship in 1844 and was appointed Consul General of Austria in New York. In protest against his view was the cruel policy of Austria against Hungary, he joined in 1850 by this office back. On November 7, 1849, he married Caroline Slidell Perry, daughter of Matthew Calbraith Perry naval officer. Her uncle, the deputy John Slidell, Belmont led them to advocate for the Democratic Party and to support the nomination of James Buchanan financially as a presidential candidate. However, after Franklin Pierce was then nominated as a candidate, Belmont joined the camp.

After Pierce won the presidential election in 1852, he appointed to the Belmont Chargé d'affaires of the United States in The Hague, in gratitude for the generous financial contribution during the election campaign. Belmont aspired to the post of ambassador to Spain, but Pierce's successor James Buchanan refused. Belmont was started in 1860 in part as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, in which he supported the Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas.

In the same year he was elected to Baltimore as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He held until 1872 this office. Belmont was during the Civil War, an ardent supporter of the interests of unionists and exerted a strong influence on the merchants and financiers from the United Kingdom and France. Belmont died in 1890 at the age of 76 years.

Aftereffect

In year of his death was published under the title Letters, Speeches and Addresses of August Belmont, a compilation of his letters and speeches. After Belmont, who was an avid sports fan, the renowned horse racing Belmont Stakes is named. Also named after him in 1859 the small town of Belmont in New Hampshire - an honor that he wanted all his life never recognize. The figure of Julius Beaufort in the novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is supposed to be modeled after August Belmont.

His sons Perry (1851-1947), August Jr. (1853-1924) and Oliver (1858-1908) were also prominent people.

Comments

August Belmont was born in 1813 in Alzey ( birth register Alzey ), first child of Simon Belmont ( 1789-1859 ) and Friederike Alsace, his sister Elisabeth ( Babette ) married Stephen Feist, Koblenz, which then took the name Belmont ( Belmont Feist ).

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