Jay Cooke & Company was a U.S. bank from 1861 to 1873. It was the first brokerage house to use telegraph messages to confirm with clients the purchase and sale of securities. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it had branches in New York City and Washington, DC. The bank closed during the Panic of 1873, overextended in railroad securities.
Jay Cooke founded the bank in 1861 with William E.C. Moorhead, split two-thirds to one-third. Late...
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Jay Cooke & Company was a U.S. bank from 1861 to 1873. It was the first brokerage house to use telegraph messages to confirm with clients the purchase and sale of securities. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it had branches in New York City and Washington, DC. The bank closed during the Panic of 1873, overextended in railroad securities.
Jay Cooke founded the bank in 1861 with William E.C. Moorhead, split two-thirds to one-third. Later partners included Cooke's brothers, Henry and Pitt, then H.C. Fahnestock and Edward Dodge, who would hold the bank's seat on the New York Stock Exchange after 1870.
During the American Civil War, Cooke & Company sold hundreds of millions of dollars in Union government bonds. Its reputation among investors around the world enabled the bank to sell these bonds when other brokerages could not. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase asked Cooke to try to sell the government's new $500 million issue of 5-20 bonds. These paid six percent interest ...
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