Otto Kahn

Born: 1867 | Died: 1934

Entrepreneur

Otto Kahn was the son of banker Bernard Kahn in Mannheim, southwestern Germany. Kahn started to work at a bank at age 17, but studied music at the same time at Karlsruhe University.

In 1888, he was sent to London to work for Deutsche Bank and became a British citizen before emigrating to the United States in 1893. Arriving in New York City, he accepted a position at banking house Speyer & Co. A few years later, he was made partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Co, where he remained for almost 40 years. One of Kahn’s major contributions was the reorganization of six major railroad systems, including Union Pacific.

Still interested in music, Kahn was very active on the board of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He became a stockholder at the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1903. He also contributed to many cultural and educational institutions and is considered one of the greatest patrons of the arts in the USA. Otto Kahn brought director Giulio Gatti-Casazza and conductor Arturo Toscanini from La Scala Opera in Milan, Italy, to the Metropolitan Opera. In 1910, he bought the Manhattan Opera Company from Oscar Hammerstein for almost two million dollars at the height of the competition with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

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