It was the height of the Gilded Age and J. Pierpont Morgan controlled the fate of railroads, corporations and governments. The wealthy and influential were said to tremble before him, yet he deferred to one man: Anthony J. Drexel. Drexel — whose name is familiar today only through the university he founded and his recently canonized niece, Katharine — was the most influential financier of the 19th century.
Drexel and his firm quietly pioneered many of today’s financial and business strategies, such as trading national currencies, guaranteeing credit for travelers abroad, rewarding workers based on individual initiative, and offering “sweat equity” to deserving employees who could not afford to buy stock. By cultivating Morgan’s self-confidence and allowing him to become the public face for the firm, Drexel was able to avoid attention and nurture his extended family.
Today, Drexel’s influence and accomplishments are mostly forgotten or credited to others, but after decades of detective work and careful research, Dan Rottenberg has succeeded in writing the first biography of this exceptionally influential and elusive man.
Because Drexel gave no interviews, kept no diaries, held no public offices and destroyed most of his personal papers, Rottenberg had to painstakingly track down every reference and anecdote he could find and, in the process, discovered 150 previously unknown letters and
cables in Drexel’s hand. Drexel believed that there is no limit to what people can accomplish if they don’t mind who gets the credit, but as “The Man Who Made Wall Street” shows, the balance has finally been paid in full.
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
