George Fisher Baker

Media depiction

The April 14, 1924, edition of Time said of Baker:

Baker was "closely associated with" Morgan, the late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. robber-baron, monopolist, and Wall Street banker "in his manifold enterprises", according to Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais's 1955 book, Labor's Untold Story. The book notes that "Morgan and associates organized super-trusts in steel (U.S. Steel), shipping (International Mercantile Marine), and agricultural machinery (International Harvester);" and it also "had its hands in other fields—the railroads (where...some 30,000 miles of railway were controlled), anthracite coal (where from two-thirds to three-quarters of the entire shipment was in Morgan hands)." Other Morgan monopolies included electrical machinery (General Electric), communications (AT&T, Western Union), traction companies (IRT in New York, Hudson & Manhattan), and insurance (Equitable Life).

In 1934, Time called him "the richest, most powerful and most taciturn commercial banker in U. S. history", while an article in Newsweek described him as one of the most imposing figures in banking history.

In the November 1994 issue of Worth magazine, James Grant, editor of the financial newsletter Grant's Interest Rate Observer, calls Baker a hidebound turn-of-the-century banker who always got his loans repaid.

Baker was famously silent in public, never commenting on events or giving interviews, until 1922, at age 82, when he gave his first newspaper interview. Thereafter, he spoke occasionally at luncheons and gatherings. AT&T Corporation Bankers Trust Central Railroad of New Jersey Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Great Northern Railroad Lehigh Valley Railroad Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York New York Central Railroad

Personal life In 1869, Baker was married to Florence Tucker Baker, a daughter of Benjamin Franklin Baker and Sophronia J. (nee Whitney) Baker. Together, they were the parents of:

Evelyn Baker (1870–1936), who married Howard Bligh St. George in 1891. They had 5 children, with the oldest, George Baker Bligh St. George marrying Katharine Price Collier. Florence Bellows Baker (1876–1936), who married William Goadby Loew. George Fisher Baker Jr. (1878–1937), who married Edith Brevoort Kane. Their daughter Elizabeth married John M. Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and their son, George F. Baker III married Frances Drexel Munn, a daughter of Mary Astor Paul and member of the Drexel banking family.

He was a member of the Jekyll Island Club (aka The Millionaires Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia. He was also a member of the New York Yacht Club, having been elected in 1895.

Baker died in New York City on May 2, 1931.

Properties

Baker lived on Madison Avenue in New York City, and maintained a summer property on Jekyll Island near Brunswick, Georgia, and had an estate in Tuxedo Park, New York. for which Harvard gave him an honorary doctorate and named the library after him.

In 1922, Baker established a $1 million dollar endowment fund for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Baker had been a member of the museum board since 1909.

Baker donated $2 million to Cornell University for the construction of the Baker Laboratory of Chemistry, as well as Baker dormitories, and he endowed the Baker Lecture Series, the oldest continuous lectureship in chemistry in the United States.

He made other large donations to charitable causes throughout New York City and funded the construction of Baker Field, Columbia University's primary athletic facility. He provided $2 million for Baker Memorial Library at Dartmouth College.