Charles Yerkes | |
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| Born | Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-06-25)June 25, 1837 |
| Died | December 29, 1905(1905-12-29) (aged 68) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur andinvestor |
| Known for | Urban transit finance |
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| Parent(s) | Charles Tyson Yerkes Sr. and Elizabeth Link Yerkes |
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Charles Tyson Yerkes Jr. (/ˈjɜːrkiːz/YUR-keez; June 25, 1837 – December 29, 1905) was an American financier. He played a part in developing mass-transit systems inChicago andLondon.
Yerkes was born into aQuaker family[1] in theNorthern Liberties, a district adjacent toPhiladelphia, on June 25, 1837.[2] His mother, Elizabeth Link Yerkes, died ofpuerperal fever when he was five years old, and soon thereafter his father Charles Tyson Yerkes Sr. remarried a non-Quaker and was therefore expelled from theSociety of Friends. After finishing a two-year course at Philadelphia'sCentral High School, Yerkes began his business career at the age of 17 as a clerk for a local grain brokerage. In 1859, aged 22, he began his own brokerage business and registered with thePhiladelphia Stock Exchange.
By 1865, he had begun banking and specialized in selling municipal, state, and government bonds. Relying on his bank president father's associations, his political acquaintances, and his own acumen, Yerkes became well-known as a businessman. While serving as a financial agent for the City of Philadelphia's treasurer,Joseph F. Marcer, Yerkes risked public money in a large-scale stock speculation. This speculation ended calamitously when theGreat Chicago Fire started a financial panic. Left insolvent and unable to make payment to the City of Philadelphia, Yerkes was convicted of larceny and sentenced to thirty-three months inEastern State Penitentiary.
In an attempt to remain out of prison, he attempted to blackmail two influential Pennsylvania politicians. The blackmail plan initially failed; the damaging information concerning the politicians was eventually made public and politicians, including then-PresidentUlysses S. Grant, feared that the revelations might harm their prospects during the upcoming elections. Yerkes was promised a pardon if he would deny the accusations he had made. He agreed to these terms and was released after serving seven months in prison.[3]
In 1881 Yerkes traveled toFargo in theDakota Territory to obtain a divorce from his wife. Later that year, he remarried and relocated toChicago. There, he opened a stock and grain brokerage but soon became involved with planning the city's public transportation system. In 1886, Yerkes and his business partners used a complex financial deal to acquire control of theNorth Chicago Street Railway and then followed this with a series of further takeovers until he controlled a majority of Chicago'sstreet railway systems on the north and west sides. Yerkes was not averse to using bribery and blackmail to obtain his objectives.[3]
In an effort to improve his public reputation, Yerkes decided in 1892 to fund the world's largest telescope after being lobbied by theastronomerGeorge Ellery Hale and University of Chicago presidentWilliam Rainey Harper. He had intended initially to finance only a telescope but agreed eventually to fund an entireobservatory. He contributed more than $500,000 to theUniversity of Chicago to establish what would become known asYerkes Observatory, located inWilliams Bay,Wisconsin.
In 1895, Yerkes purchased the Republican partisan newspaper, theChicago Inter Ocean, using the publication to publicize his political agenda.[4]
Yerkes began a campaign for longer streetcar franchises in 1895, but Illinois governorJohn Peter Altgeld vetoed the franchise bills. Yerkes renewed the campaign in 1897, and, after a hard-fought struggle, secured from theIllinois Legislature a bill granting city councils the right to approve extended franchises. The so-called franchise war then shifted to theChicago City Council — a venue in which Yerkes ordinarily thrived. A partially reformed council and MayorCarter Harrison IV, however, ultimately defeated Yerkes, with the swing votes coming from aldermen"Hinky Dink" Kenna and"Bathhouse" John Coughlin.
In 1899, Yerkes sold the majority of his Chicago transport stocks and relocated toNew York.[1]
While living in Chicago, Yerkes became an art collector, relying onSarah Tyson Hallowell (1846–1924) to advise him for his purchases. After theChicago World's Fair in 1893, she tried to interest him in the works ofAuguste Rodin, which were part of the loan exhibition of French art. Because the subject matter was controversial, Yerkes initially refused the works, but he soon changed his mind and acquired two Rodin marbles,Cupid and Psyche andOrpheus, for his Chicago mansion, the first two of Rodin's works known to have been sold to an American collector. Yerkes' art collection also included paintings byFrans Hals, works by theFrench academic painters, such asPygmalion and Galatea byJean-Léon Gérôme and works byWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau and members of theBarbizon School. In 1904, he published a two volume catalog of his collection, which by that time was in New York:
In August 1900, Yerkes became involved with the development of theLondon underground railway system after riding along the route of one proposed line and surveying the city ofLondon from the summit ofHampstead Heath. He established theUnderground Electric Railways Company of London to take control of theDistrict Railway and the partly builtBaker Street and Waterloo Railway,Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway, andGreat Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway.[1] Yerkes employed complex financial arrangements similar to those that he had used in the United States to raise the funds necessary to construct the new lines and electrify the District Railway (now known as theDistrict line). In one of his last great triumphs, Yerkes managed to thwart an attempt byJ. P. Morgan to become involved with the London underground railway.[1] Yerkes did not live to see his London tube lines in operation. The nowBakerloo andPiccadilly lines opened in 1906, a few months after his death, and the Charing Cross line (now part of theNorthern line) the next summer.
Yerkes died in the hotelWaldorf Astoria in New York on December 29, 1905, ofkidney disease.[7] The events of Yerkes's life served as a model forTheodore Dreiser's novelsThe Financier,The Titan, andThe Stoic,[3] in which Yerkes was fictionalized as Frank Cowperwood.
ThecraterYerkes on theMoon is named in his honor.
Pictures of Yerkes and his second wife Mary were painted by his favorite artist Jan van Beers (National Portrait Gallery,Washington, D.C.). His wife, the daughter of Thomas Moore of Philadelphia, was also painted in 1892 by the Swiss-born American artistAdolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947). In 1893 Müller-Ury painted from miniatures portraits of Yerkes's Quaker grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Silas Yerkes. In 1906, his widow Mary Adelaide married playwright and raconteurWilson Mizner; they were divorced the next year.
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| Preceded by (new position) | Chairman, Underground Electric Railways Company of London 1902-1905 | Succeeded by SirEdgar Speyer |
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