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Investment Banking in the Age of Laissez‐Faire

Alan D. Morrison and William J. Wilhelm Jr.

in Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law

The second half of the 19th century saw the high water mark for laissez-faire capitalism. Business people, politicians, and jurists were largely agreed that economic progress was best accomplished in ... More

The second half of the 19th century saw the high water mark for laissez-faire capitalism. Business people, politicians, and jurists were largely agreed that economic progress was best accomplished in free markets, supported by a minimal state. In this environment, investment banks were extremely important: they levered their reputations and their relationships to create the private laws that were needed to support large-scale financial capitalism. Technological advances forced the merchant banks mentioned in Chapter 5 to specialize in investment banking. This chapter discusses the role of the largest investment banks, and in particular of Kuhn Loeb and JP Morgan, in shaping modern corporate America. The investment banks invested investor activism, and they created the modern investment bank syndicate. In particular, their activist work with financially distressed corporations resulted in the development the ‘equity receivership’, the first coherent corporate bankruptcy law.Less

Concert with High Moments

Williams Martin

in Jazz Changes

This chapter describes a concert at the Loeb Student Center of New York University by the Ornette Coleman Quintet, featuring Coleman on alto and violin; Don Cherry on trumpet, cornet, and an Indian ... More

This chapter describes a concert at the Loeb Student Center of New York University by the Ornette Coleman Quintet, featuring Coleman on alto and violin; Don Cherry on trumpet, cornet, and an Indian flute; Dewey Redman on tenor, Charlie Haden on bass; and Ornette's son Denardo Coleman on drums. The occasion was also sort of a reunion. Haden and Cherry were in the first band that Ornette Coleman brought to the famous Five Spot in New York in the late fall of 1959. But the program had seven new compositions by Coleman, and one by Charlie Haden. It was one of the most magnificent, exciting, and satisfying musical performances critics had ever heard.Less

Conclusion: Bending Plato

Todd W. Reeser

in Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance

The conclusion discusses the vestiges or transformations of the kinds of rereadings studied in post-Renaissance translations of Plato—including those of Jean Racine, Percy Shelley, and the ... More

The conclusion discusses the vestiges or transformations of the kinds of rereadings studied in post-Renaissance translations of Plato—including those of Jean Racine, Percy Shelley, and the twentieth-century Loeb translations.Less

Paul M. Warburg: 1868–1932: Daddy Warbucks

Edward Morris

in Wall Streeters: The Creators and Corruptors of American Finance

The chapter describes Paul Warburg’s role in the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

More Gaieties

Frederick Nolan

in Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway

Although it meant working for the first time away from Herbert Fields, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart accepted a new commission and made arrangements to go to London as soon as they were finished ... More

Although it meant working for the first time away from Herbert Fields, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart accepted a new commission and made arrangements to go to London as soon as they were finished with a new edition of The Garrick Gaieties. Larry and Dick had been reluctant to do a follow-up, because the element of spontaneity and youthful insouciance the first show had traded on would be missing. However, Terry Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild won them over by pointing out that revenues, from the Ziegfeld Follies on down, were doing big business, and by promising them star billing, Hard and Rodgers argued no more: star billing at the Theatre Guild was very attractive. Working with many of the same talented young people — Edith Meiser, Romney Brent, Philip Loeb, Hildegarde Halliday, Betty Starbuck, Sterling Holloway — they set out once more to kid the theatrical profession in general and the Theatre Guild in particular.Less

Governing the Affluent University

Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller

in Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University

When Conant left the presidency in 1953, Harvard was still under the sway of its traditional soft-shoe, old boy administrative style. Pusey felt no great ... More

When Conant left the presidency in 1953, Harvard was still under the sway of its traditional soft-shoe, old boy administrative style. Pusey felt no great obligation to modernize governance. To the end of his presidential days, he relied on an almost ostentatiously small staff. When he came to work each morning, he opened his own mail. Here as elsewhere, older folkways stubbornly endured. Pusey’s closest associates in the 1950s were two very different breeds of cat. One was personal assistant William Bentinck-Smith ’37, an affable, cool-minded former journalist with a facile pen (something the president lacked). Bentinck-Smith was Pusey’s amanuensis and a close adviser on a variety of alumni and policy matters, very much as Calvert Smith had been for Conant in the 1940s. “I worked for him for eighteen extraordinary years, in a relationship of mutual trust and intimacy,” Bentinck-Smith recalled. Pusey’s (improbable) other close confidant was Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean McGeorge Bundy. If Pusey was as much a product of middle America as a Harvard president was likely to be, Bundy was as close to an aristocrat as America was likely to produce. He was a scion of the Boston Lowells, self-confident enough to have gone not to Harvard but to Yale. Rumor had it that the Corporation put pressure on Pusey to make Bundy dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Fellow Roger Lee told the president-elect in the summer of 1953: “only if a first-rate administrator is available and thoroughly briefed before the opening of college will you yourself be free to deal with the many policy questions which will naturally arise with a change in the presidency.” Pusey himself says that he was attracted by an acerbic Bundy review of William Buckley’s assault on the liberal university, God and Man at Yale. Only thirty-four when he became dean in 1953, associate professor of Government Bundy soon showed those who didn’t know it already that he had as sharp a mind as anybody in the University. A consummate meritocrat, he handled his faculty with effortless ease, and for the most part they loved it. Less

Rope (1948)

John Billheimer

in Hitchcock and the Censors

In Hollywood in the 1940s, both prevailing morality and the Production Code made it impossible to produce a film about gay men. That made the filming of Rope, based on a play mirroring the notorious ... More

In Hollywood in the 1940s, both prevailing morality and the Production Code made it impossible to produce a film about gay men. That made the filming of Rope, based on a play mirroring the notorious Leopold-Loeb murder case, in which two homosexual University of Chicago students kidnapped and murdered a fourteen-year-old boy, a particularly risky venture. Hitchcock made the venture even riskier by hiring a gay screenwriter, Arthur Laurents. The Production Code censors detected a gay subtext and suggested a few minor script revisions involving language and stereotypically gay behavior. Hitchcock chose to film the movie in real time, breaking at intervals of roughly ten minutes to insert a new reel of film. These long takes proved to be a hardship on the actors, who had to endure long retakes if someone fluffed a line, and set designers, who had to create breakaway furniture to enable uninterrupted camera movement. Although the gay subtext disturbed a few reviewers, it went largely unnoticed by audiences at the time. The film is considered inferior Hitchcock, not because of the subtext or casting, but because Hitchcock’s long takes worked against his strengths as a director, emphasizing linear movement and dialogue rather than pacing and montage.Less

Primordial Chaos and Creation in Gur Hasidism: The Sabbath that Preceded Creation

Yoram Jacobson

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 15: Focusing on Jewish Religious Life, 1500-1900

This chapter deals with one of the central themes of the work Sefat emet, the collection of homilies by Rabbi Judah Arie Loeb Alter, the second teacher of the Gur dynasty, which is considered by Gur ... More

This chapter deals with one of the central themes of the work Sefat emet, the collection of homilies by Rabbi Judah Arie Loeb Alter, the second teacher of the Gur dynasty, which is considered by Gur hasidism to be the canonical text of the school to this day. A wide variety of subjects is discussed in the thousands of teachings (torot) contained in this vast collection. Some of these are more concerned with historiosophical issues, while others present the mystical existentialism of the individual who seeks their spiritual redemption. Nevertheless, all of them, without exception, reflect different aspects of a unified system of thought that revolves around a fixed and steady axis. It is almost impossible to imagine a more monolithic approach — certainly within the framework of the homiletic writings of Beshtian hasidism — be it in terms of the interconnections and coordination among its theoretical aspects or in terms of the conceptual unity of its teachings and the homiletic motifs that serve as their expression, as these teachings were articulated by the rebbe of Gur for the thirty-five years of his leadership of this major hasidic movement.Less

Descartes and the Action of Body on Mind

Nicholas Jolley

in Causality and Mind: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy

Some modern scholars such as Loeb have defended Descartes’ doctrine of mind-body interaction by arguing that it is not inconsistent with his Causal Adequacy Principle. This chapter seeks to extend ... More

Some modern scholars such as Loeb have defended Descartes’ doctrine of mind-body interaction by arguing that it is not inconsistent with his Causal Adequacy Principle. This chapter seeks to extend this line of defence by focusing on the causation of mental events by bodies. It is shown that Descartes’ position here is complicated by his distinction between the formal and objective reality of ideas and by his subscription to the Augustinian principle that minds are more perfect than bodies. It is argued, however, that even when these complications are recognized, Descartes’ position emerges largely unscathed; at most the Causal Adequacy Principle is a source of difficulty only for a strong version of interactionism.Less

Leibniz and Phenomenalism

Nicholas Jolley

in Causality and Mind: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy

This chapter addresses the question whether Leibniz became a phenomenalist in his later years when he was committed to an idealist ontology. In opposition to Furth and Loeb it is argued that he did ... More

This chapter addresses the question whether Leibniz became a phenomenalist in his later years when he was committed to an idealist ontology. In opposition to Furth and Loeb it is argued that he did not. Although Leibniz flirted with phenomenalist ideas on occasion, he never truly accepted them; on the contrary, he maintained a rival reductionist thesis to the effect that bodies are in some sense aggregates of monads. However, this conclusion raises difficulties of its own, for in certain respects phenomenalism seems like the more attractive option; for instance, phenomenalism dispenses with the veil of perception. It is argued that Leibniz’s reluctance to accept phenomenalism must be explained in terms of his goal of reconciling monadology and physicsLess

Introduction

James C. Oleson

in Criminal Genius: A Portrait of High-IQ Offenders

Criminologists estimate the true volume of crime—the “dark figure”—to be approximately four times the size of crime reported in official statistics. Most crime goes unrecorded, and criminologists ... More

Criminologists estimate the true volume of crime—the “dark figure”—to be approximately four times the size of crime reported in official statistics. Most crime goes unrecorded, and criminologists know far more about the criminal behavior of the poor, uneducated, and young than they do about the crimes of the wealthy, educated, and powerful. Although the criminal genius is a cherished villain in history (e.g., Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, Theodore Kaczynski, and Caryl Chessman), literature (e.g., Raskolnikov, Professor Moriarty, and John Galt), and film (e.g., Hannibal Lecter, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. Mabuse, and Ozymandias), little is actually known about the crimes of those possessing above-average IQ.Less

Destinations: Broom (1921–4) and Secession (1922–4)

Peter Nicholls

in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Volume II: North America 1894-1960

This chapter discusses the histories of Broom and Secession, two publications that were key to the evolution of the American avant-garde and especially to its connections with European Dada and ... More

This chapter discusses the histories of Broom and Secession, two publications that were key to the evolution of the American avant-garde and especially to its connections with European Dada and Surrealism. Broom, founded in 1921, was published in Rome and Berlin, while Secession, its successor one year later, moved between Vienna, Berlin, and Florence. Broom's editor Harold Loeb and Secession's founders, Matthew Josephson and Gorham Munson, belonged to a generation of young men in the 1920s who left America in search of artistic freedom and the libertarian life style in Europe.Less

Illuminating Animal Behavior: The Impact of Laboratory Structure on Tropism Research at Marine Stations

Samantha Muka

in Why Study Biology by the Sea?

Two main experimental programs emerged in heliotropism research at the turn of the twentieth century. One program, associated with the work of Jacques Loeb, focused on quantitatively measuring large ... More

Two main experimental programs emerged in heliotropism research at the turn of the twentieth century. One program, associated with the work of Jacques Loeb, focused on quantitatively measuring large groups of organisms’ reactions to light to identify universal behavior patterns. The other, closely associated with Herbert Spencer Jennings, focused more closely on qualitative analysis of individual organisms’ behaviors to ascertain how internal and external variables impact those responses. Both programs required specialized organisms, light technologies, and spaces to conduct their experiments. Marine stations were the epicenters of both heliotropism research programs. This paper examines how a single institution could simultaneously support opposing research projects requiring different experimental set-ups. Three variables made marine stations so useful to both groups: access to a wide array and abundance of fresh specimens, a wide variety of lighting and glassware, and simple spaces able to be molded to the experimentalist’s requirements.Less