Background
Robert Lehman was born in New York City, the son of Philip Lehman, a banker, and Carrie Lauer. His father ran Lehman Brothers, the banking firm founded by his father and uncles.
banker philanthropist bollector
Robert Lehman was born in New York City, the son of Philip Lehman, a banker, and Carrie Lauer. His father ran Lehman Brothers, the banking firm founded by his father and uncles.
Lehman attended the Hotchkiss School (1905 - 1909), and received a B. A. in 1913 from Yale University.
Upon graduation Lehman devoted himself to his father's art collection until 1917, when he enlisted in the army, where he served as a captain with the 318th Field Artillery in France. In 1919 Lehman joined his father's firm. By 1921 he had become a partner, and by 1925 he was functioning as the bank's principal partner, a position he held for forty-three years.
Lehman initiated the recruitment of the firm's first nonfamily partners, and he involved the bank increasingly with retail businesses rather than producers, the traditional Wall Street investments. Retail merchandising soon became the firm's forte. It provided financial services for Federated Department Stores, W. T. Grant, F. W. Woolworth, Interstate Department Stores, Gimbels, Macy's, and the Allied Stores Corporation.
Lehman was also interested in the entertainment industry. In 1928 he created the nation's largest vaudeville circuit, comprising more than 700 theaters, through a consolidation of the Keith-Albee and Orpheum theaters. This inevitably led to his interest in the motion picture industry, and he provided funding to RKO, Paramount Pictures, and Twentieth Century-Fox. He also pioneered in television financing. In the late 1930's his firm sponsored the first public underwriting of a television company, Allan B. DuMont Laboratories.
In 1929, Lehman Brothers began a long involvement with the air transportation industry. That year Lehman was named to the board of directors of Pan American Airways and assisted it in funding its early expansion in South America. Also in 1929, Lehman Brothers helped underwrite the creation of the Aviation Corporation, of whose executive committee Lehman became chairman. The corporation soon acquired many airlines and related companies and had approximately eighty subsidiaries when the airlines were consolidated as American Airways (later American Airlines) in 1933. That year Lehman lost control of the Aviation Corporation in a stock battle. In 1934 Lehman Brothers gained a controlling interest in Transcontinental and Western Airlines later Trans World Airlines), which it held until 1939. Lehman also helped finance Capital, Continental, and National airlines.
During the Great Depression, when many investors lacked either the capital or the inclination to acquire corporate securities, Lehman creatively funded his clients through the capital resources of insurance companies and pension funds. In the 1940's Lehman became intrigued by Thoroughbred horse racing. During the next quarter-century, he purchased, bred, and raced dozens of horses. By the late 1960's he had more than sixty horses in Kentucky and New York racetracks.
In the early 1950's Lehman underwrote the initial offerings of the conglomerates Litton Industries, Inc. , and Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. Reportedly, Lehman Brothers accepted shares of Litton then worth less than one dollar each; those shares later rose to $150 each. The Lehman art collection, one of the finest private collections in the United States, included approximately 1, 000 paintings, including works by great European masters. In 1957 a selection of 293 works was exhibited at the Louvre. Lehman also collected Gothic tapestries, Renaissance furniture and jewelry, Venetian glass, Persian and Chinese ceramics, and bronzes. The collection was maintained in a private museum in New York City until it was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969. In 1963 Lehman established a $500, 000 endowed chair in art history at Yale University and in 1967 he gave $1 million to the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. In 1967 Lehman was made chairman of the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At his death his art collection was valued at between $50 and $100 million. Lehman had the rare capacity to accurately anticipate economic trends and the wisdom to support industries in their vanguard. Although he invited all to call him "Bobbie, " few could bring themselves to so address the patrician financier. Lehman died at Sands Point, Long Island, New York.
On October 26, 1923, Lehman married Ruth Rumsey, whom he divorced in 1931. They had no children. He married Ruth Owen Meeker on January 29, 1932. They had one child. On July 12, 1952, he married Lee Anz Lynn.