Terrence Grothen
Ryan Haidar
Mr. Hitchcock
U.S History/ Period 6
8 November 2015 Jay Cooke Script
T: Jay Cooke was born on August 10, 1827 in Sandusky Ohio. Cooke grew up in an up scale household, being the son of a lawyer and politician. At 14, Cooke dropped out of school and became a clerk at a local store, sparking his interest in banking. At age 18 Cooke got a job at the Philadelphia banking house of E.W. Clark and Co., and three years later he joined the firm as an official member.
R;In 1861 he opened his own banking house in Philadelphia and lent $3,000,000 as a war loan to the state of Pennsylvania. He was briefly engaged by the Treasury department in 1862 for taking 5 million but was hired again in 1865, and sold $830,000,000 worth of bonds. In 1870 Cooke’s firm financed the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway but fell when the panic of 1873 hit. By 1880, Cooke had regained all his wealth and died peacefully and wealthily in 1905…show more content… Cooke sold over 900 million dollars worth of war bonds. Cooke may have been accused of being a robber baron with his first campaign of selling war bonds were he pocketed $5 million (and later was caught) but due to the huge success of his first campaign, the national treasury hired Cooke again to raise more money which he did very successfully. Besides war bonds, Cooke financed the Northern pacific railway, Duluth Minnesota and owned the very prosperous Horn Silver Mine in Utah. Cooke believed in helping all small communities like his own, helping aid his image of a Captain of
