Kuhn, Loeb had been a good example of the workings of kinship ever
since the first Loeb married Kuhn’s sister. Schiff was Loeb’s son-in-law,
and Abraham Wolff, his contemporary, was Loeb’s cousin. New partners in
the 1890s were Felix Warburg, Schiff’s son-in-law; Louis Heinsheimer, a
nephew of Loeb; and Otto Kahn, Wolff’s son-in-law. Schiff did not take to
Kahn, but because of his affection for Wolff and in recognition of the im-
portance of family, he agreed to the appointment.^18 Nor was there any
doubt that Schiff would groom his own son for partnership and eventual
direction of Kuhn, Loeb. Mortimer’s training was tailored by his father.
Before he entered the firm, the young man received a grounding in Ameri-
can railroad work and served a stint in Europe under the tutelage of Ernest
Cassel. In 1900 he became a full partner. Except for his son and son-in-law
the partner closest to Schiff was Abraham Wolff, a man with whom Schiff
worked for twenty-six years before Wolff’s untimely death.
In 1902, Paul Warburg, later of Federal Reserve Board fame, married
Therese’s sister and became a Kuhn, Loeb partner. Not until 1912 was
there a partner (Jerome Hanauer) in the firm who was not related to Loeb,
Schiff, or Wolff, and not until the post–World War I era were there part-
ners who were not Jewish.^19
Supple’s emphasis on the distinctive traits of the Jewish banking houses
has since been modified. First, as Vincent Carosso showed, non-Jewish
firms also benefited from family ties. Second, the success of a firm, whether
Jewish or non-Jewish, was determined more by its “creative leadership”
and its reputation for integrity. Nevertheless, despite Carosso’s insistence
that the differences between Jewish and Gentile bankers were outweighed
by their similarities,^20 the reliance of Jewish houses on a kinship network
that spanned two continents played a pivotal role in their achievements.
The importance of group cohesion notwithstanding, Jewish bankers at
Kuhn, Loeb and other American firms were not insulated from the rest of
the world. They consciously patterned their manners and institutions on
those of the Protestant upper-middle and upper classes. Where prejudice
did not exclude them, they eagerly participated in activities of the non-
Jewish world. Different from their counterparts in England and Germany,
they had fewer problems balancing Jewish identity with integration into
the larger society. American law recognized no ethnic or religious distinc-
tions, and a society more fluid than Europe’s readily permitted Jewish eco-
nomic and social mobility. To be sure, the last quarter of the nineteenth
century witnessed a significant rise in social discrimination in the United
States that kept Jews out of private schools, clubs, and resorts. Some Jews,
like many non-Jews, blamed Christian animus on Jewish separatism.
Therefore, in order to gain non-Jewish acceptance, members of the Jewish
elite largely determined for themselves how far they were willing to be “de-
judaized.” They never forgot that they were a small group in a Christian
The Making of a Leader 7