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JOHN JACOB ASTOR
By Kenneth Wiggins :Porter THE Harvard University Press has begun a series of studies in the business history, of America With a formidable life Of John Jacob Astor, in two volumes, by Kenneth Wiggins Porter (60s.). Astor was the first of the great American millionaires. He made the bulk of his money in the first really stable periOd of-peace which the new Republic enjoyed, in the years after the end of the war of 1812. He made it in all kinds of trading operations, beginning with the fur trade,' and passing on to China and Pacific trade in general. When, however, he had made what was in those days a large fortune, he turned away from trade and devoted his attention to investment in land: At first he chose land in the far-away West, but finding this comparatively unprofitable, he turned to the systematic. purchase of the upper part of Manhattan Island. These pur- chases were very profitable, even in the original Astor's life- time, but even he can hardly have foreseen that he was buying what would be in less than a, century's time by far the most valuable land in the whole world. Thus was founded the gigantic fortune of the house of Astor, which, unlike many American accumulations, has 'been preserved from generation to generation, and is still to-day one of the great—and one of the most solid—of American fortunes.
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