This won­der­ful biog­ra­phy of a for­got­ten Amer­i­can financier con­tains mul­ti­tudes. Besides being a real-life, rags-to-rich­es sto­ry, it describes an immi­grant expe­ri­ence that doesn’t fit the stereo­types. It’s also a kind of cau­tion­ary tale that vivid­ly cap­tures the eras and the places where its events take place.

A boy named Sam Kauf­man came to Amer­i­ca well before the mass Jew­ish migra­tion of 1880 – 1920, trav­el­ing from Bavaria in 1850 at the age of thir­teen. Rather than set­tling in a major city, as so many Jews did, he became an itin­er­ant ped­dler in Michigan’s Upper Penin­su­la. He lat­er set up shop in Mar­quette, where his son Louis Grav­er­aet (“LG”) Kauf­man lat­er worked at the Mar­quette Coun­ty Sav­ings Bank. LG, who was shrewd and ambi­tious, was friend­ly with the bank’s founder through the local Mason­ic Lodge. At the right moment he bold­ly offered to buy the bank. It became a bril­liant suc­cess, and Louis went on to mar­ry the daugh­ter of one of the rich­est men in Chica­go. He also joined Grace Epis­co­pal Church. 

In 1910, LG accept­ed an offer to serve as pres­i­dent of the Chatham Nation­al Bank in New York, which even­tu­al­ly grew to be fifty times larg­er under his lead­er­ship. It was also the first nation­al bank in New York ever to have branch­es, among oth­er inno­va­tions. LG bought a vil­la in Palm Beach for $100,000 — about $1.8 mil­lion in today’s dol­lars — in addi­tion to his enor­mous fam­i­ly lodge in Michi­gan and his sprawl­ing New York apart­ment at 270 Park Avenue. He social­ized with celebri­ties like George Gersh­win, Lionel Bar­ry­more, Mary Pick­ford, and Fred Astaire. And he had extra­or­di­nary influ­ence in busi­ness, includ­ing a key role in the acqui­si­tion of Gen­er­al Motors by Chevrolet.

LG Kaufman’s most grandiose act was also his undo­ing. In 1929, devel­op­ers were talk­ing about con­struct­ing a sky­scraper even taller than the sev­en­ty-sev­en-sto­ry Chrysler Build­ing. For­mer New York Gov­er­nor Al Smith sug­gest­ed nam­ing the new struc­ture the Empire State Build­ing. Kauf­man com­mit­ted the bank to the project, expect­ing that the tallest build­ing in the world would attract many eager occu­pants. He could not have known that the great stock mar­ket crash lat­er that year would reduce leas­ing demand to almost zero. His bank pro­vid­ed today’s equiv­a­lent of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in financ­ing, expect­ing rental income that nev­er materialized.

Ann Berman tells these sto­ries in a delight­ful­ly con­ver­sa­tion­al style, as if she were writ­ing a per­son­al let­ter to the read­er. She vivid­ly evokes the places where the events took place, from busi­ness offices in New York to mos­qui­to-filled sum­mers near Lake Supe­ri­or, as well as the peo­ple involved. What’s more, she is as atten­tive to the details of busi­ness as she is empa­thet­ic with the peo­ple she writes about. It’s a treat from start to finish.