The Guggenheims : a family history / Irwin Unger and Debi Unger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Unger, Irwin.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Unger, Debi.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Guggenheim family.

Mineral industries--United States.

Mineral industries.

United States.

United States--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

550 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Harper Perennial, 2006.

Summary:

Meyer Guggenheim, a Swiss immigrant, founded a great American business dynasty. At their peak in the early twentieth century, the Guggenheims were reckoned among America's wealthiest, and the richest Jewish family in the world after the Rothschilds. They belonged to Our Crowd, that tight social circle of New York Jewish plutocrats, but unlike the others-primarily merchants and financiers-they made their money by extracting and refining copper, silver, lead, tin, and gold.

The secret of their success, the patriarch believed, was their unity, and in the early years Meyer's seven sons, under the leadership of Daniel, worked as one to expand their growing mining and smelting empire. Family solidarity eventually decayed (along with their Jewish faith), but even more damaging was the paucity of male heirs as Meyer and the original set of brothers passed from the scene.

In the third generation, Harry Guggenheim, Daniel's son, took over leadership and made the family a force in aviation, publishing, and horseracing. He desperately sought a successor but tragically failed and was forced to watch as the great Guggenheim business enterprise crumbled.

Meanwhile, "Guggenheim" came to mean art more than industry. In the mid-twentieth century, led by Meyer's son Solomon and Solomon's niece Peggy, the Guggenheims became the agents of modernism in the visual arts. Peggy, in America during the war years, midwifed the school of abstract expressionism, which brought art leadership to New York City. Solomon's museum has been innovative in spreading the riches of Western art around the world. After the generation of Harry and Peggy, the family has continued to produce many accomplished members, such as publisher Roger Straus II and archaeologist Iris Love.

In The Guggenheims, through meticulous research and absorbing prose, Irwin Unger, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in history, and his wife, Debi Unger, convey a unique and remarkable story-epic in its scope-of one family's amazing rise to prominence.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Beginnings 1

Chapter 2 Foundation 28

Chapter 3 New York 49

Chapter 4 ASARCO 69

Chapter 5 Malefactors 100

Chapter 6 Profits and Patriotism 127

Chapter 7 Family Affairs 175

Chapter 8 Harry Augustus 238

Chapter 9 "High Priest of the Clan" 283

Chapter 10 "The Grand Old Man" 351

Chapter 11 A Fool for Love 392

Chapter 12 Unraveling 452.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

006093400X

9780060934002

OCLC:

222663154