August Belmont (1813–1890) financier, politician, arts patron, and sportsman

Belmont was born to Jewish parents in Germany and immigrated to the United States at the age of 23. Rising from the position of office boy to confidential clerk for the Rothschilds’ banking firm in Frankfurt, Belmont was in New York when the Panic of 1837 ruined the Rothschilds’ agent there. He established August Belmont and Company, a private banking firm, and soon became a dominant figure on Wall Street, where his longterm connection to the Rothschilds worked to his advantage. His firm’s early fortunes relied on its foreign exchange transactions, on commercial and private loans, and on investments in industrial, railroad, and government securities.

Despite being a naturalized American, Belmont harbored political and diplomatic ambitions, and he was helped in realizing some of them through his wife’s uncle, John Slidell, a leading Washington Democrat. President Franklin Pierce rewarded Belmont’s 1852 campaign largesse by naming him minister to the Netherlands. While at The Hague, Belmont negotiated a commercial treaty opening the Dutch East Indies to American merchants. He also played a less public role in drafting the Ostend Manifesto (1854), which some fellow American diplomats hoped would convince Spain to sell its Caribbean possession, Cuba, to the United States. Belmont continued his strong affiliation with the Democratic Party with major contributions to President James Buchanan’s 1856 election campaign; he also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the subsequent presidential campaigns of Stephen A. Douglas (1860), George B. McClellan (1864), and Horatio Seymour (1868).

During the Civil War, Belmont was a prominent “War Democrat” and successfully persuaded the Rothschilds and other leading European financiers to avoid any involvement with Confederate bond issues. In the postwar period, Belmont sided with the “hard money” bloc. He called for the prompt resumption of specie payments by the United States Treasury and opposed the compromises of the Bland-Allison Act (1878). When the American economy revived after a mid-1870s depression, August Belmont and Company became a leading investment banking house, often associated with J. P. Morgan and Company in underwriting syndicates that floated large issues of railroad and industrial stocks and bonds.

Belmont had a keen appreciation of the arts, especially painting and opera. He purchased many paintings to adorn his Fifth Avenue mansion. In 1878, he helped found the New York Academy of Music for operatic productions and symphonic concerts and served as head of its board until 1884.

Belmont also established for himself a major reputation in the world of sports. He was instrumental in bringing thoroughbred horse racing to the United States and supported two large horse breeding farms. It was he who began the Belmont Stakes in 1867, which subsequently became the famous “last leg” of a Triple Crown for threeyear- old race horses, following the Kentucky Derby and the Pimlico Preakness. He served for almost a quarter of a century as president of the American Jockey Club.

Belmont died on November 24, 1890, two weeks shy of his 77th birthday. He was succeeded at the family bank by his son August BELMONT II, who became equally famous in banking, social, and sporting circles.

See also ROTHSCHILD, HOUSE OF.

Further reading

• Black, David. The King of Fifth Avenue: The Fortunes of August Belmont. New York: Dial Press, 1981. 
• Katz, Irving. August Belmont. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. 

Irving Katz