Today, Goldman Sachs stands as one of the largest investment banks in the world. Yet few know the story of their founder, Marcus Goldman, the humble immigrant who arrived in the US to get a slice of his own American Dream.
Early Life
The man who history would remember as Marcus Goldman was born as Mark Goldmann on December 9 1821 in the village of Trappstadt, then in the Kingdom of Bavaria (now a part of Germany), as the eldest of his parents’ five children.
Mark’s father, Wolf, was a somewhat prosperous farmer and cattle dealer who had married Bella Katz Oberbrunner, the widow of a man called Samuel Oberbrunner, who was left with five children from that marriage.
Despite growing up with five older half-siblings and four younger full siblings, the Goldmann family’s farming/cattle dealing business allowed them to live comfortably, even if German law prevented them from doing many of the things non-Jews could do.
The family were quite close, particularly Mark and his younger brother, Simon, who often helped their father sell cattle at market, where they both (but Mark in particular) mastered the art of bartering that would serve him well in the years to come…
Thanks to the family’s modicum of wealth, Wolf was able to send Mark to a Christian school – something unheard of in Germany at the time – where he excelled academically, particularly in Maths, and learned to speak English.
Indeed, Mark clearly impressed his schoolmaster, who recommended to his parents that he attend advanced lessons offered by the rabbi at the synagogue in the nearby city of Würzburg.
More insightful than his lessons at home, Mark also made friends with a fellow student three years older than him called Joseph Sachs, the son of a saddle maker and the father of his future business partner Samuel Sachs. The pair would become lifelong friends.
Move to America
In 1848, a series of anti-monarchist revolutions swept across Europe, as monarchies that had stood for over 1,000 years were overthrown overnight and replaced by unstable republics.
The situation for Jews was not much better, as many used the revolutions to attack members of the Jewish community and ransack their businesses. And German Jews had it the worst.
Realizing that they weren’t safe in Germany, and that they had no future there, Mark and Simon made arrangements to leave Germany for the United States, even if doing so would put additional strain on their parents’ business.
After securing their parents’ blessing, paying the “Jewish tax” imposed on Jews attempting to the leave the country as well as their travel expenses, the two brothers took the train to Bremerhaven, where they boarded a steamship headed for London.
Once in London, they boarded another ship, the Margaret Evans, heading on a two-weeklong voyage to Philadelphia. The conditions aboard the ship were abhorrent, disease was rife and food was hard to come by for Jewish passengers.
Alas, Mark and Simon arrived in Philadelphia on September 4 1848 and immediately split apart. Mark chose to stay in Philadelphia, whilst Simon chose to head westwards to California in hopes of striking it rich in the Gold Rush.
The American Dream?
Not long after disembarking from the Margaret Evans, Mark Goldmann was traveling the streets of Philadelphia when someone came up behind him and placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder.
Much to his surprise, it was his friend Joseph Sachs, who’d similarly left Bavaria for the safety of America (albeit a few months earlier) to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher. Sadly, however, no schools in Philadelphia would hire Joseph, forcing him to move to Baltimore, Maryland.
But where Joseph Sachs had seen misfortune, Mark saw opportunity. Wanting to help his friend out, Joseph guided Mark to the boardinghouse he’d been staying at the past few months, run by a German woman called Frau Muller.
As it so happened, Frau Muller’s son, Manfred, ran a tobacco shop from the ground floor of his mother’s boardinghouse and was in need of someone to help him run the store.
Drawing on his years selling cattle with his father all those years earlier, and partly out of a desire to find work in his new country, Mark took the job working for Manfred.
For the next three years, Mark Goldmann rode the streets of Philadelphia in a horse-drawn wagon peddling household goods for 14 hours a day. He even met and married his wife Bertha, a seamstress and the daughter of German immigrants from Darmstadt!
Through this job, Mark noticed the streets of Philadelphia was getting more and more crowded with German immigrants, and more seemed to be arriving every day.
As an immigrant himself, he knew that many of them arrived with little more than the clothes on their back and needed cheap clothing. Combined with his wife’s history as a seamstress, Mark decided to reinvent himself as a tailor.
