Financier, Investment Banker, and Philanthropist. Born Otto Hermann Kahn, the 5th of eight children to Jewish parents in Mannheim, Germany, he desired to become a musician, and learned to play several instruments before graduating from his secondary education in Mannheim. His father had set plans for him to become a banker and at the age of 17, he was placed in a bank at Karlsruhe, Germany as a junior clerk, where he remained for three years. At the age of 21, he served in the Kaiser’s hussars, a light cavalry military organization, for a year. After leaving the army, he went to the London, England agency of Deutsche Bank, where he remained five years, displaying such unusual talents that he became second in command when he had been there but a comparatively short time. The English mode of life, both political and social, appealed to him, and eventually he became a naturalized British citizen. In 1893 he accepted an offer from Speyer and Company of New York City, New York and immigrated to the US, where he spent the rest of his life. In January 1896 he married Addie Wolff, the daughter of financier Abraham Wolff, and following the couple’s year-long tour of Europe, he joined the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York City, where his father-in-law was a partner. He was introduced to railroad builder E. H. Harriman and in spite of sharply defined differences in temperament and method, they became close. Although only 30 years old at the time, he took an almost equal part with Harriman in the gigantic task of reorganizing the Union Pacific Railroad, proving his ability to analyze mathematically and scientifically the problems that were constantly presented. He soon became known as the ablest reorganizer of railroads in the US, and applied himself to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Wabash Railroad, the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad, the Texas and Pacific Railroad, and other rail systems. His prompt and vigorous action averted an imminent financial panic on several occasions. In 1917 he surrendered his British nationality and became a US citizen. In 1933 he was successful in disarming antagonism against members of the banking community during four days of testimony before the US Senate’s Pecora Commission hearings into the Wall Street Crash of 1929. During the last years of his life, he became increasingly frail and suffered from arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure and attacks of angina pectoris. An extremely wealthy financier, he supported artists such as poet Hart Crane, music composer and pianist George Gershwin, and orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini. He died from a massive heart attack in New York City at the age of 67. A patron of the arts, he served as a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and of Rutgers College in Camden, New Jersey. He was the chairman of the New York committee of the Shakespeare Tercentenary (1916) and was elected to honorary membership in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity by the Fraternity’s Alpha Chapter at the New England Conservatory in 1917. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York and of the French Theatre of New York and a founder and later treasurer of the New Theatre Company. He was also a director in numerous corporations, including the Equitable Trust Co. of New York and the Union Pacific Railroad. His country home on Long Island, named Oheka Castle, was the second largest private residence in the US at 109,000 square feet. His home in New York City, built in 1918, was an 80-room Italian Renaissance-palazzo style mansion, modeled after the Cancelleria in Rome, Italy. (bio by: William Bjornstad)  Family links:  Spouse:  Adelaide Wolff Kahn (1875 – 1949)*  Children:  Margaret Kahn Ryan (1901 – 1995)*  Gilbert Wolff Kahn (1903 – 1975)*  Roger Wolfe Kahn (1907 – 1962)* *Calculated relationship