Where Are They Now?

Glore, Forgan & Co. Ford Motor Company Syndicate #9 Founded 1937, Chicago Origins The son of a golf club manufacturer, David Roberston Forgan (1862-1931) was born in St. Andrews, Scotland. When he was 15 years old, David started working as a messenger boy in the Clydesdale Bank in his hometown. David was preceded in the field of banking by his older brother, James B. Forgan (1852-1924), who worked with the Royal Bank of Scotland and then with the Bank of British North America , which stationed him in Canada and the United States. James then worked at the Bank of Nova Scotia before moving to Minneapolis to create an agency for the bank in that city. In 1892, he moved again, this time to Chicago where he became the first vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago . He was named president in 1900. David Robertson Forgan. Courtesy of Library of Congress . David Forgan followed in his older brother's footsteps, and in 1880, he immigrated to Canada, w...

Hirsch & Co., Continued Hirsch, Lilienthal & Co. (founded 1911, New York) In 1911, Charles S. Hirsch joined forces with Joseph Leo Lilienthal (1880-1936) to create the firm of Hirsch, Lilienthal & Co. A graduate of Harvard (1902), Lilienthal was the son of Philip Nettre Lilienthal (1849-1908), a San Francisco banker. Born in New York and raised in Cincinnati, Philip was the son of Max Lilienthal , a respected Jewish rabbi and Bavarian immigrant. At the age of 18, Philip joined the firm of J.W. Seligman & Co. In 1869, the Seligmans sent him west to head up a San Francisco branch. In 1873, he set out on his own and founded the Anglo-Californian Bank. He married Isabella "Bella" Seligman (1859/1860-1906), the daughter of Joseph W. Seligman , who was the founder of the House of Seligman, in 1879. Born in 1880, Joseph Leo Lilienthal was Bella and Philip's oldest son. Before he joined in partnership with Charles Hirsch, Joseph worked at Goldsmith & Co...

F.I. duPont, Glore Forgan & Co. (1970) In the early post-war period, F.I. du Pont's expansion was considered a sign of the growing economy and the firm's strength among its peers. By the early 1960s, however, the firm's mergers reflected a more difficult business environment, a desire to cut operating costs and the need for more capital. In 1970, Francis I. duPont & Co. merged with two firms, Glore Forgan Staats, Inc. (founded 1965, New York) and Hirsch & Co. (founded 1944, New York), in "one of the largest consolidations in Wall Street history." The name of the new firm was F.I. duPont, Glore Forgan & Co., though a new corporate subsidiary called DuPont Glore Forgan, Inc. was also created to conduct investment banking activities. Wallace C. Latour, the senior managing partner of duPont, became a managing director. J. Russell Forgan, Glore Forgan & Co.'s founder, was the honorary chairman of the board of directing partners. Edmond du Pon...

A.C. Allyn & Co., Continued F.I. duPont & Co. (1963) F.I. du Pont, A.C. Allyn, Inc. (subsidiary, founded 1963, New York) In 1963, while Allyn Jr. was still head of the White Sox and three years after Allyn Sr. died, the Allyn brothers decided to merge A.C. Allyn & Co. with the firm of Francis I. du Pont & Co. (founded 1931, New York), whose senior partner, Edmond du Pont , was the son of the founder. The newly merged firm became the second largest brokerage firm in the United States, second only to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. with "assets of more than 300 million dollars and a net worth in excess of 35 million dollars." The new firm had more than 110 offices and almost 3,000 employees. It retained the F.I. duPont name, but an affiliate named F.I. du Pont, A.C. Allyn, Inc. (founded 1963, New York) was created as a corporate underwriting division. The Allyn brother joined the duPont firm as partners. Given Francis I. duPont's ear...

A.C. Allyn & Co., Continued A.C. Allyn & Co., Inc. (founded 1912, Chicago) A.C. Allyn & Co. (founded 1948, Chicago) In 1928, Arthur Allyn made the fortuitous decision to liquidate much of the firm's debt, and A.C. Allyn & Co. survived the crash that followed. That year, in 1929, Allyn created Artnell, an investment company named after him and his wife, Nelle Musick. (They married in 1913.) The Allyns had two sons, A.C. Allyn, Jr. and John W. Allyn, who both joined the family firm. Arthur C. Allyn Jr. (1913-1985) studied at Dartmouth College and did not initially go to work for the family firm. He worked as "a biologist for the California Packing Company in San Francisco from 1938 to 1945," and served as president of the Pacific Vinegar Company until 1949, when he moved back to Chicago to become a partner in A.C. Allyn & Co. and president of Artnell Co., then a holding company. John W. Allyn (1917-1979) was a graduate of Lafayette University ...

A.C. Allyn & Co. Ford Motor Company Syndicate #32 Founded 1921, Chicago Origins Born in Hopkins, MO, Arthur Cecil Allyn (1887-1960) was the son of Frank Egbert Allyn (1855-1919) and the former Mary Hettie David. Allyn traced his lineage back to a Thomas Allyn from Connecticut, who fought in the American Revolution. His father was a commercial trader in the hardware business. Allyn grew up in Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri, and he studied at the University of Chicago. In 1906, he had to leave school when his father became ill. After working as a buyer for sporting goods in a hardware company, Allyn moved from St. Louis to Chicago in 1908. He said, "I decided if I could make money in sporting goods I could make money in a business that handled money." Allyn was introduced to Harold L. Stuart , a member of the bond firm N.W. Halsey & Co., by the cousin of General Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), William R. Dawes, who was an acquaintance of his father....

Francis I. du Pont & Co. Ford Foundation Syndicate #36 Founded 1931, New York According to The Evening Journal , Francis I. du Pont & Co. instituted innovative business practices for the securities business, translating F.I.'s practice for doing research from E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. to his new firm and also introducing marketing and advertising in "mass circulation magazines and newspapers." F.I. said, "We felt that the future of the stock market lay in broadening its base by bringing in the small investor." Several of F.I. du Pont's earliest partners were his sons and his sons' associates. His son, Edmond (1906-1996), was born in Delaware and educated at Princeton and Oxford. Edmond joined the firm in 1932 and by the early 1940s, was directing "the firm's record-keeping toward automation." Through these efforts, the firm became a pioneer "in the use of automated equipment to cope with the involved figuring o...

In 1974, DuPont Walston was liquidated. At that time, the histories of Francis I. duPont & Co., Glore Forgan & Co., Wm. R. Staats, Inc., Hirsch & Co., A.C. Allyn & Co. and Walston & Co., six members of the Ford Motor Company Syndicate, came to an end. Over the next several posts, we will take a closer look into the histories of each of these firms and how they all eventually became a part of DuPont Walston. Origins Eleuthére Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) founded his namesake firm, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., a chemical manufacturer, in 1802. A French immigrant and the son of a watchmaker, E.I. du Pont demonstrated an interest in the study of gunpowder from a young age. His mentor was Antoine Lavoisier , the French chemist. In 1799, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, du Pont's family immigrated to the United States. Though he returned briefly to France in 1801, du Pont settled in Delaware, where he founded the first of many gunpowder mills. ...