Biography of Frank A. Vanderlip

A brief biography of Rockefeller protege Frank Vanderlip
-- by: C.E. Booth, 1914, source: Vanderlip Family website
MHP hypertext version for non-profit educational use only

MHP Editor's Preface

This biography appears in "The Vanderlip, Van Derlip, Vander Lippe Family in America", by Charles Edwin Booth, New York, 1914. It is remarkable that a dropout machinist could somehow become President of the Rockefeller banking house and their representative at the 1910 Jekyll Island conference where the Federal Reserve System was hatched.

Frank A. Vanderlip

Frank Arthur Vanderlip was born in Aurora, Illinois, and spent his boyhood days on a farm near that place. He was a student at the University of Illinois, taking in addition to the regular course, instruction in mechanics. He was unable to complete his course at that institution. In later years in recognition of his writings on financial topics, he was given an honorary degree of Master of Arts by that University.

After finishing his school work, he became an apprentice in a machine shop in Aurora, where he studied mechanics at the bench, during which time he took a course in shorthand and did his exercises with chalk on the bed-plate of the machine on which he worked. He saw little chance for advancement in this line of work and at the age of about twenty he went to Chicago, where he was employed by a firm engaged in making financial reports of corporations.

Through the investigations which he made, he became a reporter on the Chicago Tribune. He was assigned to financial writing and in a short time became the financial editor of the Tribune, a place he held for several years, during which time he gained a reputation for clear and lucid writing on financial topics. While in this position he took an extended course in political economy at the University of Chicago. He left the Tribune to become one of the editors of the Economist, a financial publication of which he was part owner.

When Lyman J. Gage, then the president of the First National Bank of Chicago, was given the post of Secretary of the Treasury in President McKinley's cabinet, he made Mr. Vanderlip his private secretary. His grasp of the intricate work of the Department resulted in him being appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury after he had been two months in Washington. He was assigned to the handling of the government finances, which he did in such a way as to attract the attention of financiers. A number of positions of importance were offered to him, all of which he declined. One of the most notable services that he rendered in the Treasury department was the handling of the Spanish-American war loan in the summer of 1898.

At the end of four years' service at the Treasury Department Mr. Vanderlip resigned his position to become Vice-President of the National City Bank in New York. Before taking up the duties of his new position he made and extended trip through Europe, visiting all of the capitals and making a study of European finances. During the trip he gathered material for a series of articles on business topics which wrote for Scribner's Magazine under the title of "The American Commercial Invasion." These articles were afterwards printed in book form and they were translated and printed in several foreign languages, including Japanese.

He found time during this period of service to do a good deal of financial work for magazines and other publications. He is author of a book called "Business and Education" which has a wide circulation. On January 12, 1909, he was elected president of the National City Bank.

For many years Mr. Vanderlip has been active in various movements for social and civic betterment, particularly the matter of improved educational methods. He was responsible for the first school in the United States to adopt the Montessori Method of kindergarten instruction. He has been for some years a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and for four years was President of the Board of Managers of Letchworth Village, and institution established by the state of New York for the care of deficients. He home is "Beechwood", Scarborough-on-Hudson, New York. Mr. Vanderlip had made a fine collection of paintings, of early English furniture and old silver, in all of which he has invested much interest.

He is actively connected with many large corporations, a director or trustee of the following:

• National City Bank
• Nation Bank of Commerce
• Farmers' Loan & Trust Company of New York
• Riggs National Bank of Washington
• Union Pacific Railroad
• United States Realty and Improvement Co.
• Consolidated Gas Company

He is active in the work of the Chamber of Commerce, The Merchants Association, the Economic Club and the Academy of Political Science. He is the president of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club at Scarborough [N.Y.] and is a member of the Metropolitan, the Century, the City and Union League clubs of New York, and other organizations in New York, Washington, and Chicago.