Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Mayer’s family name derived from the red (rot) shield on the house in the ghetto in which his ancestors had once lived. Intended for the rabbinate, Mayer studied briefly, but his parents’ early death forced him into an apprenticeship in a banking house. Soon after becoming court factor to William IX, landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, Mayer set the pattern that his family was to follow so successfully—to do business with reigning houses by preference and to father as many sons as possible who could take care of the family’s many business affairs abroad.