John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire [Hardcover]

Axel Madsen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471385034 | ISBN-13: 978-0471385035 | Publication Date: January 19, 2001 | Edition: 1

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"A well-written biography."-New York Times

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On Chanel: A Woman of Her Own:
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On Gloria and Joe:
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Expertly situating his subject's accomplishments in the context of late 18th- and early 19th-century commercial and geopolitical expansion, Madsen (Chanel; Gloria and Joe) weighs in with an absorbing biography of one of 19th-century America's most powerful men. Having immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1783, Astor was on friendly terms with such prominent figures as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Albert Gallatin by the time he came to dominate the North American fur trade in 1800. While Astor's relationships with Jefferson and others characterized the wheeling and dealing in fledgling Washington, D.C., his mastery over the fur trade figured significantly in opening up the American West. The book's best moments come when Madsen describes Astor's efforts to establish a permanent outpost in the Oregon territory. Called Astor, it was designed not only to aid its founder's domination of the fur trade in the Northwest, but to help him facilitate trade with China--for while fur brought Astor his first fortune, foreign trade provided him with his second. While he had a talent for exploiting new business opportunities, Astor also had the foresight to extricate himself from both the fur and trading businesses before they waned. Astor's third fortune, the legacy he would pass on to his heirs, sprang from his real estate investments in Manhattan. He sank the profits from his first ventures into large swaths of land in rapidly expanding New York City, where he built mansions and tenements alike. Madsen provides a largely sympathetic portrait of Astor; while no revelations emerge, the book effectively projects his story against the backdrop of seminal events in early American history. 21 illus. and 2 maps.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

For much of our nation's history, the name Astor has been synonymous with great wealth. Madsen (Chanel, Gloria and Joe) now adds his account of the life and times of the nation's first multimillionaire. Astor was born in Germany in 1763 and came to the New World at age 20 with a shipment of musical instruments as his stake. By the time he died in 1848, he had made separate fortunes in the fur trade, the China trade, and New York real estate, with a few bucks from opium trading thrown in. But his really big money came from land, which he purchased in large tracts in and around the burgeoning city of New York and leased out on long contracts. By the late 1880s, his descendants were collecting $9 million per year in rent from the city alone! This work is based on such published sources as Kenneth W. Porter's John Jacob Astor, Businessman (1931) and John Upton Terrell's Furs by Astor (1963) but does have both footnotes and a list of sources. Unfortunately, there are many awkwardly constructed sentences and geographic errors; otherwise, this would have been an acceptable public library purchase. Patrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll., La Crosse
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471385034
• ISBN-13: 978-0471385035
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting., February 14, 2004

By 

Michael E. Fitzgerald (Kingwood, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire (Hardcover)

John Jacob Astor led the life most people do not even dare to dream about. He was a serial entrepreneur at a time when most of the world was composed of farmers. He was so successful at his businesses that when he died he controlled one-fifteenth of all personal wealth in the United States! Among many other things it is safe to say he was a very driven man.

Born in relative poverty in Germany, he immigrated to the United States via England, arriving just after the Revolutionary War ended. Marrying the daughter of the woman who ran his boarding house in New York, his business career moves from the importing of musical instruments to the exporting of furs. So successful is he in the fur business that he is able to finance the establishment of the first American fort in Oregon and supports this effort with his own ships via Cape Horn. Returning east overland, his employees discover the route that subsequently becomes the Oregon Trail!

This is a swashbuckler of a story which spans not just the North American Continent but the global economy as it existed in his day as well. Besides furs, he traded tea, seal skins, opium and assorted other commodities through global wars and economic recession on a scale to match the great trading houses of England, the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. He was a man who took huge business risks. A key focus of the book is naturally the fur trade, the dominant wealth generator of its time. This was his first truly big score, one that he engaged in for over 20 years and the primary venture through which he amasses the fortune that provided the investment capital for all the endeavors which would follow.

Alex Madsen does an excellent job of fitting Astor within the economic and political time period in which he lived. I have found information here on the fur trade I have found nowhere else. This is a very well researched book; one that not only reports on the biography of the life lived but the history of the time as well. There is a lot to appreciate here. It is a book well worth the time.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Astor's Millions, August 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire (Hardcover)

Found it to be a interesting look at the man behind the millions. The main focus of the book is aimed at examining how he made his fortune, sometimes in too much detail. I was expecting to find more information on how his fortune stood in relation to the times and how he spent his money, but Astor was known more for making money, not spending it. The book is more like a study in the business of late 18th century trapping, merchant shipping and real estate than it is about Astor, but that is the underlying theme of the book as well. Astor was the biggest business man in all three areas. The story of Astor deals with wealth, politics and war and how they were all connected. Well researched book and easily read. RECOMMENDED.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nobody is Home in Madsen's new Biography, November 23, 2001

By 

Daniel Davy (Manhattan, Kansas United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire (Hardcover)

Perhaps I should not write a review of this book as I did not finish it. I found the subject--Astor, who he was, what he did, and how and why he did it--very interesting, but Madsen's treatment an example of biography at its worst. Why? Because we are presented with the data of Astor's life, but where is Astor? There is virtually nothing communicated as to what type of person he was, WHY he was so ambitious, what he felt and thought about the various activities he undertook, his successes, relative failures, etc. In many instances of course the available data of his life do not necessarily communicate the subjective life of the psyche, only the objective actions. But it is the very task of a biographer--in my view the most vital task--to artfully connect the various "dots" of data so as to reveal the subjective life within, the drama of the mind and heart reacting to events as the events unfold. You don't get that here.