Diamond Jim Brady: You should ‘Go big! Or Go home!’

Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column features Diamond Jim Brady, the first man in New York to have a motor car and whose family were said to come from Co Cavan...

In the era of America’s Gilded Age, so-called ‘Robber Barons’ ruthlessly amassed great wealth through buying up banks, oil companies, shipping companies and other industries thereby eliminating competition and creating monopolies. This process of business takeover is known as ‘horizontal integration’ and places important businesses in the hands of a few. Famous Robber Barons of the nineteenth century who were contemporaries of Diamond Jim Brady included J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller. ‘Go big! Or Go home!’ was rich man ‘Diamond’ Jim Brady’s creed. However, unlike the ‘Robber Barons,’ Brady ,although earning millions of dollars as a salesman of railroad equipment, he did not buy up companies. He lived lavishly but did not partake in the exploitation of industrial might.

Golden Age

A good friend of mine who lived in America in the 1980s remembers an old man in a New York bar ask him if he ever heard of Diamond Jimmy Brady. The stranger had known of him and had heard that Brady’s family originally were from Co Cavan. Diamond Jim was what the original ‘king of bling’ during America’s ‘Gilded Age.’ But it was not always that way for Jim, since he grew up in virtual poverty, pulling himself up by the bootlaces, and with a little help. Then, I found an article in the Irish Digest magazine from 1959 which said that ‘the Fabulous’ Diamond Jim Brady’s ‘people came from Cavan’, that he was ‘a noted man for his love of food (but not of drink)’ and was a ‘political and business tycoon’ who left ‘many millions’ when he died in 1917.

Jim got his nickname from his love of collecting jewellery and diamond pieces which he wore to ‘enhance his appearance.’ Becoming a celebrity, he would frequent only the most exclusive clubs and eateries, usually accompanied by young pretty women. He would sit into the early hours eating contentedly but only drinking orange juice. He never drank alcohol. He had different diamond jewellery pieces, one for each day of the month. Diamond Jim’s thirty sets of jewellery had a value at a whopping $1 million dollars. That was a lot of dough.

Early life

Born in New York city on the August 12, 1856, James (Jim) Buchanan Brady grew up in the famed hell’s kitchen quarter. Jim’s father was an Irish immigrant named John Brady, whose family are said to be from Co Cavan, and he owned Brady’s Saloon in New York City. The family lived above the premises. When Jim was only eleven his father died, and his mother soon remarried. Jim and his thirteen year-old brother Daniel found jobs at the upmarket St James Hotel in the rich part of town. But Jim had a lucky streak. He befriended the general manager of New York’s Central Railway, James M. Touchey who seemed to hold an interest in Jim Brady’s work ethic and persona. He helped Jim get a job in the baggage section at Grand Central Station and put him through school. While at school, Jim kept up his job and rose to New York Central Railroad’s head clerk.

But the job was not to last. Daniel, his older brother, got work with the company too, but caught stealing. As punishment, they sacked both brothers. But Mr Touchey, it seems, had a soft spot for Jim Brady, and made sure that he found new employment, requesting Charles Arthur Moore of the Moore travelling company to take him on as a salesman in his railroad supplier business of Manning, Maxwell, and Moore. The legend of ‘Diamond Jim’ was born. Jim’s supreme salesmanship made him a super success, and he now had real money to play with. He dressed smarter, believing that you ‘had to look like money to make money.’ And his business knowledge turned Manning, Maxwell, and Moore into a financial empire. In the 1900s, he also dabbled in the steel industry and assisted Sampson Fox, an English businessman, to sell steel ‘to the railroad companies.’ One writer noted: ‘He was able to indulge his other great passions in life—food and the company of beautiful women.’

Diamond Jim had plenty to brag about. Interestingly, Jim Brady became the first New Yorker to own an automobile in New York city. Another form of transport favoured by Jim was a bicycle, however, his bike like those of his closest friends was gold. Jim’s bike included studded diamonds added for a greater effect. Incidentally, the Irish Digest remarked that his house on 36th Street, New York, was ‘inevitably ornamented, covered in the diamond motif.’ Even the legs on his billiard table were diamond encrusted.

Female admirers included Edna MaCauley and Lillian Russell, the latter remaining a friend for life. Another of his confidences was the famous theatre performer Lily Langtry. Diamond Jim’s favourite pastime was stuffing himself and the quantities he ate gained him enormous weight and eventually took its toll on his health. One time, he arrived at the emergency room of the John Hopkins hospital, informed by his doctor that he barely had a day left to live. They discovered he had massive gallstones. More amazingly, Diamond Jim survived, and in gratitude he donated a shed load of money to the hospital. Jim continued to suffer medical problems and developed heart and kidney troubles.

Brady’s sparkling jewels consisted of belt buckles, cufflinks, tie clasps, and bracelets. By the sounds of him, his excess of clinking jewels would have been a hit with the high living hip hop musicians of today. However, Anita Price Davis wrote in an excellent article, that Brady tended to use his wealth for the good of others, ‘endowing the James Buchanan Brady urological institute,’ named after him, in 1912, and making ‘contributions to the Cornell Medical Centre.’ She described him as ‘congenial’ and ‘free spending,’ a generous person. As his health grew frail, he chose another career path and entered the life of a stockbroker. Towards the end of his life, he enjoyed his last month’s living in the Shelbourne Hotel in Atlanta City. He refused to go spend those final days in a hospital. Following his death, an auction in association with the American Art Galleries, held a sale of a collection of Brady’s ‘modern paintings’ that consisted of seventy-three lots on sale in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, New York, on January 14, 1918.

Unlike the famous Robber Barons, I like the fact that Diamond Jim Brady did not set out to monopolise industrial power, but instead, he chose to enjoy, indulge, and distribute his wealth in a philanthropic manner. In so doing, he broke the mould becoming the United States richest salesman during the golden years of the Gilded Age.

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