Where Are They Now?

“The New York Stock Exchange is not a cold, heartless organization. It isn’t eighths and quarters on decimal points—it’s people.”  - Robert Lester Newburger Born in Germany, Morris Newburger (1834-1917) immigrated to the United States in 1854. His father was a teacher and descended from a family of rabbis. In Germany, Morris worked in the dry goods business. In the United States, he lived in New York, in the South, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois, before settling in Philadelphia in 1963. In 1862, he married the former Betty Hochstadter, and he entered into a partnership with his brothers-in-law, Adolph, Albert, and David Hochstadter, creating the firm of Newburger & Hochstadter, wholesale clothing traders. Morris became the president of the Mechanics National Bank in Philadelphia and founded the clothing manufacturer, Morris Newburger & Sons with his sons. He and his wife had seven children: five sons, Samuel M. Newburger, Alfred H. Newburger, Frank...

Josephine Holt Perfect Bay was the first woman to the head a member firm of the New York Stock Exchange and is the only female executive in the Ford Motor Company Syndicate. In 1940, Charles U. Bay became senior partner of A.M. Kidder & Co. In 1946, however, he became Ambassador to Norway under President Harry Truman and took a leave of absence from the firm until 1953. In 1955, when Bay died, he owned about 71% of the firm’s stock. After his death, in 1956, Charles’s wife, Josephine Perfect Bay, assumed his position as the president and chairman of A.M. Kidder & Co., Inc. because the New York Stock Exchange rules required any stockholder who owned “more than 45% of a member company’s shares” to either sell or “take an active part in the firm.” Born in Iowa, Josephine Holt Perfect Bay (1900-1962) was raised in Brooklyn. The daughter of Otis Lincoln Perfect (1860-1919), a real estate broker, she was a graduate of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary (1916) and studied...

Alexander Brown, 1827 Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, Alexander Brown (1764-1834) was the son of William and Margaretta Davison Brown. Alex Brown became a linen auctioneer in Belfast. (Linen manufacture was a major industry in Northern Ireland in the late 18 th century). His older brother, Patrick, changed his name to John and became an insurance broker in London. His younger brother, Stewart, moved to the United States after the American Revolution and founded a Philadelphia merchant firm called Falls & Brown. Alexander Brown sent linen consignments to Stewart’s firm, which moved to Baltimore in 1797. Alexander Brown and his wife, the former Grace Davison, had seven children. Four of the sons survived to adulthood: William Brown (1784-1864), George Brown (1787-1859), John A. Brown (1788-1872), and James Brown (1791-1877). In 1800, Alex Brown decided to leave Ireland for Baltimore with his wife and oldest son. (The other sons joined them in 1802). Alexander Br...