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Among them was James Speyer, born in 1861 in New York but raised in Germany, where he learned his family's Jewish heritage and received rigorous education in banking and finance. By the late 19th century, James had honed his expertise across branches in Frankfurt, Paris, and London, before returning to New York to join the family firm—Speyer & Co.—by 1899. Under his leadership, it became the third-largest investment bank in America by 1913, managing assets exceeding $2.4 billion, roughly $76 billion today.