Description
The young French sailor who became the richest man in America — and one of its greatest philanthropists. James J. Raciti’s Stephen Girard: America’s Colonial Olympian, 1750–1831 tells the extraordinary story of a teenager from Bordeaux who crossed the Atlantic and settled in Philadelphia.
There Girard built a shipping empire and founded the first private bank in the United States. When yellow fever ravaged Philadelphia in 1793, he stayed to nurse the sick while others fled; during the War of 1812, he personally financed the American war effort when the nation’s treasury ran dry.
A graduate of Girard College himself, Raciti brings a personal passion to this biography — the story of an immigrant who believed wealth carried responsibility, and whose generosity still echoes through Philadelphia today. Engaging and richly detailed, it traces the journey from penniless immigrant to financial titan to the visionary who left his entire fortune to found a school for orphaned boys.
James J. Raciti’s Stephen Girard: America’s Colonial Olympian, 1750–1831 tells the extraordinary story of a young French sailor who became the richest man in America—and one of its greatest philanthropists.
Born in Bordeaux in 1750, Girard crossed the Atlantic as a teenage sailor and settled in Philadelphia, where he built a shipping empire and founded the first private bank in the United States. When yellow fever ravaged Philadelphia in 1793, he stayed to nurse the sick while others fled; during the War of 1812, he personally financed the American war effort when the nation’s treasury ran dry.
A graduate of Girard College himself, Raciti brings a personal passion to this biography, tracing his subject’s journey from penniless immigrant to financial titan to the visionary who left his entire fortune to found a school for orphaned boys.
Engaging and richly detailed, this is the story of an immigrant who believed wealth carried responsibility—and whose generosity still echoes through Philadelphia today.
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