J. P. Morgan in Ragtime
J. P. Morgan, or John Pierpont Morgan, a wealthy businessman obsessed with Egyptology, met his untimely demise in Egypt after his health rapidly deteriorated upon his inability to find the otherworldly experience he had sought for years. At least, that’s what happened at the end of Ragtime by Doctorow. The real J.P. Morgan died of a stroke while traveling abroad in Rome, Italy, though he was in Egypt for some time before that. He was also an avid member of the Episcopal Church, which feels like quite a stretch from Egyptology. However, I think the reason Doctorow chose to portray J. P. Morgan in such a way was not because of its apparent truth, but because of Morgan’s significance as a figure in history. His influence was quite extraordinary; one article I saw when I looked up his name titled him as “the man who bought the world”. Learning about him does make one wonder what it must be like to be a man as powerful as Morgan, someone who has the world at his fingertips -- and I thi...