50 free J. P. Morgan trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This J. P. Morgan trivia quiz covers the Gilded Age banker who bailed out the US Treasury twice, built the world's first billion-dollar company and once had the whole of Wall Street stop for his coffin. The easy questions ask what his initials stand for, where he was born, which company he made from Carnegie's steel, which giant bank carries his name and which doomed liner he had booked a suite on. From there it moves through his railroads, his 1895 gold deal with President Cleveland, the Panic of 1907 he ended in his library and the Pujo Committee that grilled him months before he died. The hard end is for people who have read Chernow: the Civil War carbine deal that dogged his name, the guano contract, the $300 substitute, the yacht that became a gunboat, the London tube line he lost to Charles Yerkes, the disease behind his famous nose, the uncle who wrote Jingle Bells, the gemstone named for him and the Monopoly mascot he inspired. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on J. P. Morgan, JPMorgan Chase, the Panic of 1907, U.S. Steel, Northern Securities, the Pujo Committee, Wardenclyffe Tower, the Morgan Library and Rich Uncle Pennybags before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Gilded Age, Wall Street history and Titanic quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did the initials in J. P. Morgan's name stand for?
John Pierpont
He preferred to be called Pierpont; his uncle James Lord Pierpont wrote Jingle Bells.
Q 02J. P. Morgan was born in 1837 in which city?
Hartford, Connecticut
He is buried there too, in Cedar Hill Cemetery; his grandfather Joseph co-founded the Aetna insurance company in the city.
Q 03Morgan's uncle James Lord Pierpont composed which famous song?
Jingle Bells
Morgan's mother Juliet was the daughter of the poet John Pierpont.
Q 04In 1901 Morgan merged Andrew Carnegie's business with others to form which company, the world's first billion-dollar corporation?
U.S. Steel
Its authorised capitalisation was $1.4 billion and it controlled two-thirds of the American steel market.
Q 05During which financial crisis did Morgan gather the nation's bankers in his library and force them to devise a rescue plan?
The Panic of 1907
There was no central bank yet; the episode helped bring about the Federal Reserve six years later.
Q 06Morgan had booked a luxury suite with a private promenade deck on which ship's maiden voyage, but changed his plans?
RMS Titanic
His International Mercantile Marine owned the White Star Line, and the sinking was a financial disaster for the company.
Q 07Which inventor did Morgan give $150,000 in 1900 to build a trans-Atlantic wireless system at Wardenclyffe?
Nikola Tesla
When Tesla scaled the project up to wireless power transmission, Morgan refused further funds and the site was abandoned by 1906.
Q 08Morgan's house at 219 Madison Avenue achieved what distinction on 6 June 1882?
First electrically lit private home in America
He had financed Edison's Electric Illuminating Company in 1878; a coal-fired steam engine drove two generators.
Q 09Morgan avoided serving in the Civil War by doing what, as the law then allowed?
Paying a substitute $300
He spent the war profiting from Union bonds and a controversial gold shipment to England.
Q 10The Hall Carbine Affair of 1861, which dogged Morgan's reputation, involved a loan used to buy rifles resold to which Union general?
John C. Frémont
Government-surplus carbines bought for $3.50 were resold to the army at $22 each; whether Morgan knew is still debated.
Q 11In 1865 the young Morgan secured an exclusive contract with Peru to export what commodity?
Guano
The bird droppings were used for fertiliser and gunpowder, and he took a two-and-a-half percent commission.
Q 12Which Philadelphia financier became Morgan's mentor and partner in 1871, forming the firm that became J.P. Morgan & Co.?
Anthony Drexel
After Drexel died the firm was renamed J. P. Morgan & Company in 1895.
Q 13Morgan's father Junius made his career in London as a partner of which American-born merchant banker?
George Peabody
Peabody turned to the Bank of England for a loan to survive the Panic of 1857 and retired in 1864.
Q 21What honour, usually reserved for heads of state, did the New York Stock Exchange grant when Morgan's body passed through the city?
It closed for two hours
His remains were taken to Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford.
Q 22Biographer Ron Chernow estimated Morgan's fortune at death at about how much?
$80,000,000
John D. Rockefeller is said to have remarked, 'And to think, he wasn't even a rich man'; his art alone was valued at $50 million.
Q 23Morgan's distinctive purple, deformed nose was caused by which condition?
Rhinophyma
It arises from rosacea; he had every professional portrait retouched and hated unauthorised photographs.
Q 14The practice of reorganising and consolidating railroads that Morgan pioneered became known by what term?
Morganization
He raised much of the money on the London Stock Exchange and personally managed the lines he took over.
Q 15In 1895 Morgan and the Rothschilds sold 3.5 million ounces of gold to the US Treasury to save it from default under which president?
Grover Cleveland
Morgan told Cleveland the government could default that very day; the deal finished Cleveland with his party's populist wing.
Q 16Which president ordered the antitrust suit that broke up Morgan's Northern Securities railroad combine in 1904?
Theodore Roosevelt
Morgan, E. H. Harriman and James J. Hill had merged the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Burlington lines.
Q 17Morgan suffered a rare defeat in 1902 when transit magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes blocked his plan to build a line on what?
The London Underground
Morgan called it 'the greatest rascality and conspiracy I ever heard of'.
Q 18To end the 1907 crisis, Morgan had U.S. Steel buy which troubled company, after Roosevelt promised antitrust immunity?
Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad
Its stock had been pledged as collateral by the brokerage Moore and Schley, whose failure could have brought down more banks.
Q 19In December 1912 Morgan testified before which congressional inquiry into the 'money trust'?
The Pujo Committee
Louis Brandeis compared the $22 billion the Morgan interests controlled to all the property west of the Mississippi.
Q 20Morgan died in his sleep in March 1913 in which city?
Rome
Wall Street flags flew at half-staff and the stock market closed for two hours as his body passed through New York.
Q 24Why, according to his son-in-law, did Morgan never have his nose surgically corrected?
He feared childhood seizures would return
He asserted the force of his character over the affliction and dared people to meet his gaze.
Q 25Morgan's first wife Amelia Sturges died four months after their 1861 wedding of what?
Tuberculosis
He carried her to their wedding ceremony and took her to Algiers hoping the climate would help; she died in Nice.
Q 26Morgan's succession of steam yachts all bore what name?
Corsair
Corsair II became the gunboat USS Gloucester in the Spanish-American War, and Corsair III ended up as a survey ship.
Q 27Which famous quip about yacht ownership is commonly, if unreliably, attributed to Morgan?
'If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it'
He was Commodore of the New York Yacht Club from 1897 to 1899 and bought the land for its Manhattan clubhouse.
Q 28When his friend John King was blackballed from the Union Club, Morgan resigned and founded which rival institution?
The Metropolitan
He told architect Stanford White to 'build me a club fit for gentlemen, forget the expense'.
Q 29Morgan served as president of which New York institution from 1904, having been a founding member?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Art critic Roger Fry worked there as a curator and buyer until he fell out with Morgan.
Q 30Who did J. P. Morgan Jr. appoint as first director when he made his father's library a public institution in 1924?
Belle da Costa Greene
She had been Morgan's private librarian and one of the most powerful figures in the rare-book world.