Talk:Charles Morgan (businessman)

Extension of article
I am from Germany and I would like to help you with further infomation in the internet: James P. Baughman: "MORGAN, CHARLES," Handbook of Texas Online - Published by the Texas State Historical Association.--92.76.97.214 (talk) 18:37, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Morgan City
I am new to Wikipedia but I wanted to let whoever is editing this know that the town of Morgan City, Louisiana was named for Charles Morgan. The town was originally called Brashear. After the Civil War, Charles Morgan dredged the Atchafalya River channel and made the town of Brashear the home base of his operations. The name of the town was changed to Morgan City in 1876 in his honor. http://www.cityofmc.com/history.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csalemand (talk • contribs) 22:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is good to know. I'd also like to add more information about the Morgan & Garrison partnership and the role it played in business with Cornelius Vanderbilt.  I'm new, too, and this is the first I've realised that an article's talk page can be used as a place to gather information toward the future expansion of a stub. — Athaenara  ✉  07:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Edits of 30 November 2017
Hi Dilidor:

I appreciate the many of edits you made on 30 Nov 2017. The article is now much cleaner and clearer.

However, there are some edits I do not understand. I hope you don't mind that I ask, especially since I solicited your help in the first place.


 * Family life - You thought some of the material was not needed. For example, "Morgan's eldest daughter, Emily Ann, married Israel C. Harris of New Orleans. In December 1847, Harris founded a partnership with Henry Morgan, Charles Morgan's youngest son. The firm of Harris & Morgan assumed agency for all of Morgan's ships. His eldest son, Charles W., eschewed the shipping business and opened his own grocery in 1849."

One thing I found interesting about the Morgan businesses was the structure of participation from members of the family. The Morgans broke the 19th-century pattern of primogeniture. The eldest son did not take over, nor did he participate in the family business. The son-in-laws were active in Morgan enterprises, but only one son was active. Does this information not help the article or do you suggest structuring the information in a different way?


 * Gulf coast packets - You cut some information about fares, transit times, and freight. Sometimes I am not sure about what level of detail is appropriate for Wikipedia.

Thanks again, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 12:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Gendered pronouns for ships - The Wikipedia Manual of Style permits both feminine and neuter pronouns for ships. Why the preference for "she" and "her"?

Dilidor:

Never mind my statement about the Family life section. I can now see that the segment in question was moved and not deleted.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Dubious paragraph
I tagged a sentence as dubious, but I found the whole paragraph problematic. And it is unsourced. I urge deletion.

"New Orleans was a major port for Morgan's steamship company and he saw this new railroad as an opportunity to move his goods to Texas, so he invested more than $2 million in it.[dubious] Much of the railroad's equipment was commandeered by the Confederate forces during the Civil War, and the railroad was sold after the war due to economic problems. Morgan purchased the entire assets and renamed it the Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company."

I doubt that Morgan invested $2 million in the NOO & GW. The think the $2 million represents its total capitalization before the Civil War, when Morgan was a bond holder of the company. I am finding nothing to indicate that he he ever held much of its ante-bellum debt. The other sentences are true, but vague. The sentences together compress the history too much and make it misleading. So this paragraph represents a fifteen to twenty year period. New content will cover the some period, but with more detail. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * "[Morgan] saw this railroad as an opportunity to move his goods to Texas..." Morgan executed his first contract with the NOO & GW in 1856.


 * "...so he invested more than $2 million in it." Morgan purchased mortgage bonds of the NOO & GW, though I cannot confirm his total investment of the 1850s. He held enough of the debt to later bring suit against the company.


 * "Morgan purchased the entire assets..." Morgan became the sole owner of the NOO & GW when he bought it at a court-ordered auction in 1869 for $2,050,000.


 * "...and renamed it the Texas and New Orleans Railroad|Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company." This is at least somewhat misleading. Morgan did not organize this company until 1877. In addition, this was a conglomeration of his various transportation interests, not the simple act of renaming a railroad.

Any thoughts? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I just figured out that the edit referenced above did have a source: Southern Pacific Bulletin, May 1836. It appears that the editor did not know how to create an inline citation, so there was a reference, but was not linked to any text. Going through the article history from 2007, I was able to find the edit.


 * I still maintain that this text has outlived its usefulness and it should be deleted. If there is is disagreement, please speak out. Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Baughman overstates Morgan's role
I summarized Baughman, Charles Morgan, (1968), p. 7779 as "Morgan coordinated with Garrison a plan to operate transportation without its debt to Nicaragua. Without the knowledge of the other directors of Accessory Transit Company, the two supported the filibuster of William Walker in Nicaragua. If Walker succeeded in his coup, his puppet would renounce Nicaragua’s previous agreement which Vanderbilt’s group had negotiated, and create new concessions to a new company controlled by Morgan and Garrison. Morgan ceded control of the Accessory Transit Company to Vanderbilt at the end of 1855; however, this was feigned cooperation in the context of the filibuster."

T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon, (2009), however, tells this story with a diminished role for Morgan.


 * Stiles rebuts the claim that Morgan and Garrison created a plan to coordinate with Walker:
 * 1) The timeline was wrong for Garrison: he departed Nicaragua for San Francisco too early to be influential in the filibuster (273).
 * 2) According to French, Garrison refused to release a steamboat from San Francisco to the filibusters (273).


 * Stiles proposes that Edmund Randolph, an old friend of Walker, devised the scheme of coordination with the Accessory Transit Company:
 * 1) Randolph first approached Garrison in San Francisco with the plan (274-5).
 * 2) Garrison refused to cooperate out of concern about reprisals from Morgan (275).
 * 3) However, Garrison sent two agents to go with Randolph to Nicaragua (275).
 * 4) After arriving in Nicaragua, Randolph brought walker into the scheme (275).
 * 5) Randolph admitted to Walker that he wanted a transit charter in order to sell it to Garrison (275).
 * 6) Randolph's scheme comported well with Walker's desire to destroy the Accessory Transit Company, since one of the company's main players, Joseph L. White, had found common cause with the Conservatives (275-6).
 * 7) William Garrison, the son and agent for Cornelius Garrison, negotiated with Walker to charter a new transit company (276).

Any comments from those who have read either book? Though Baughman carves out a large role for Morgan in Nicaragua, much of it seems speculative, while Stiles tells a more plausible story based on the evidence. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:36, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Strange edit to article history
, this edit of yours added a completely unrelated GA to the article history. Normally I'd just revert, but it looks like you were trying to fix some other problem? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)