ABSTRACT
The founder of the Guggenheim line in America arrived almost half a century after the first Du Pont. He was Meyer, fresh from the ghetto of the Swiss town of Langnau, where he was born in 1828. Meyer Guggenheim came with no capital, nor was he on intimate terms with the President of the United States. His start in the New World was drearily like that of so many Jews before and after him. At twenty, young Guggenheim was already as bewhiskered as a rabbi, yet he made up for his foreignness of speech and appearance with a cheerful and friendly manner. Meyer Guggenheim went out with a pack no more. The Guggenheims were working fast with their Exploration Company. They invested two million dollars in the Missouri soft-lead district and induced producers there to break away from the trust smelters. The Guggenheim era of business and finance obviously came to an end with the death of Daniel in 1930.
