Business Career
In the evenings Peabody read extensively at the library of the Brooklyn Y.M.C.A, which he later called his "alma mater", and also took part in the activities of the Reformed Church in Brooklyn Heights, where he met and became good friends with young investment banker Spencer Trask. On May 2, 1881, Peabody became a partner in the new firm of Spencer Trask & Company. During the 1880s and 1890s this investment house took a leading part in financing electric lighting corporations, sugar beet and other industrial enterprises, and railroad construction in the western United States and Mexico. Peabody himself handled most of the firm's railroad investments, working in close association with William J. Palmer. He also became a director in numerous corporations. Peabody, his brother Charles Jones Peabody and Spenser Trask amassed a great portion of their wealth from the Edison Electric Company. Trask served as president of Edison Electric Illuminating, and when J.P. Morgan—protégé of New England businessman/philanthropist George Peabody—financier of Edison Electric, merged all into the General Electric Company in 1892, George Foster Peabody became a member of the GE board of directors.
Read more about this topic: George Foster Peabody
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