Background
He was born on August 31, 1874 in Orrington, Maine, United States, the son of Arthur Allen Pierce, a seaman, and Anne Frances Gerry.
He was born on August 31, 1874 in Orrington, Maine, United States, the son of Arthur Allen Pierce, a seaman, and Anne Frances Gerry.
e was educated at the Corner District School in Orrington, and Bangor High School, from which he graduated in 1893. He attended Bowdoin College briefly.
After studies Pierce went to work for a Maine lumber company, and in 1901 he was transferred to New York to manage the branch sales office. Later that year, he met Arthur Housman, a stockbroker with whom he quickly developed a rapport. The financial world fascinated Pierce, and when Housman offered him a job as a clerk at $20 per week, he accepted, willingly relinquishing his $100-per-week managerial position. After two years with A. A. Housman and Company, Pierce was assigned to handle the firm's "backstage" operations, which he thought were badly in need of improvement. He immersed himself in his work and gradually grew more proficient.
Pierce's progress at A. A. Housman led to his appointment as a partner in 1915. During this period, the European business on which Housman depended was declining as a result of World War I. There was also a downturn among heavy domestic traders. Pierce realized that Housman must explore new ideas. Pierce saw the possibility for expansion in the building of a network of branch offices across the country, connected by private telegraph wires that could transmit orders and information. He persuaded his reluctant senior partners to allow him to put his plan into effect. In 1919, Pierce traveled to the Midwest, where he contracted with four brokers to be linked to the new wire service. He accomplished the same objective with the New Orleans cotton house of Fenner and Beane. The implementation of this service was a triumph for Pierce, and he was made managing partner in 1921.
Two years later, Pierce planned an extension of his wire service to the West Coast, which was deemed the sole province of the brokerage houses of E. F. Hutton and Logan and Bryan. Not surprisingly, their managers predicted only doom for Pierce's audacious enterprise. He completed his West Coast connection and built A. A. Housman into the largest wire house in the country.
In 1927, the firm's name was changed to E. A. Pierce and Company. In late 1929, business plans and routines nationwide were shattered by the stock market crash. Although it did not bring ruin to E. A. Pierce and Company, Pierce had to secure reinforcement. He met several times with two other Wall Street leaders, Charles Merrill and Edmund Lynch, to discuss the possibility of uniting their operations. They concluded that the partners of Merrill Lynch would transfer their brokerage business, along with their staff and $5 million in capital, to E. A. Pierce and Company. Pierce and his partners agreed to manage the business and to maintain a capital base of $10 million. This arrangement gave Pierce an opportunity to expand. He acquired a part or all of more than a dozen other companies in various stages of financial health.
All the while, Pierce struggled to build his business, a strenuous task amid the poverty of the 1930's. However, he was convinced that the economy would improve and trade would increase. He planned to be ready for this upswing and retained a complete staff that handled normal services.
By 1938, he was forced to close eleven offices. Pierce's partnership agreement with Merrill and Lynch among others was due to expire the following year. The state of Pierce's company discouraged his partners from renewing their contract. Pierce was in the grim predicament of closing his business or losing it in an acquisition. By contrast, Charles Merrill had bolstered his own investments, largely through his partnership with Edmund Lynch, who died in 1938. Merrill offered Pierce $2. 5 million, contingent on a 56-percent interest in their partnership. Pierce was in no position to argue. Fortunately, both men shared the same aspiration: as Merrill put it, to "bring Wall Street to Main Street. " On April 1, 1940, their joint enterprise was under way.
By the end of that year, the partners had a total of fifty thousand customers including more than twelve thousand new accounts, but they suffered a loss of $309, 000. Business quickly improved, however, and by 1943 the firm made $4. 9 million.
The post-World War II years were prosperous for Pierce and his partners, and they did not again experience the effects of a depression. Pierce remained with the firm until his retirement in 1969, at age ninety-five. Although less active in the company's affairs in his nineties, he continued to go to his office in the Manhattan headquarters five days per week.
Pierce lived to be 100 years old. He died in New York City, survived by his wife, who was 102.
Pierce strived to focus on the need for public education in securities. He exhorted commercial and investment bankers and advertising agents to work with brokerage houses to foster public education.
His energy had always impressed those around him. As a younger man, he worked standing up, at a raised desk. His day began at 8:00 in the morning and did not end until 9:00 or 10:00 at night.
On December 18, 1909, he married Luella Van Hoosear; their marriage would last sixty-five years. They had no children.